Negligence; Haliw v. City of Sterling Heights; Effect of showing violation of a statutory duty of care; Farmer v. Christensen; Common law duty on everyone engaged in any undertaking to use due care or to not unreasonably endanger the person or property of others; Hill v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.; Liability of a tenant & a landlord for conditions of leased property; McCurtis v. Detroit Hilton; Proximate cause; Craig v. Oakwood Hosp.; Ridley v. Collins; Nuisance; Cloverleaf Car Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co.

The court held that defendant-Recycling Revolution’s (RR) status as a tenant did not prevent it from owing a duty of care to plaintiffs-neighboring property owners and that it was also not entitled to a directed verdict on the issue of proximate cause. Further, there was sufficient evidence to allow the nuisance claim to go to the jury. The court also concluded that dismissal of the negligence and gross negligence claims against defendant-Statewide Recycling (SR) did not require dismissal of the nuisance claim, on which the jury found it liable. Thus, it affirmed the judgment for plaintiffs. McCurtis “recognized that both a tenant and a landlord may be liable for conditions of leased property[.]” The fact RR was a tenant of the building rather than a owner did “not relieve it from liability for conditions on the land within its control that contributed to plaintiffs’ damages. The evidence supported a finding that [RR] owed a duty of care to plaintiffs . . . arising from its use of the leased property. It was reasonably foreseeable that the recycling of materials that are considered hazardous or flammable presented a risk of harm to neighboring property owners, especially when conducted in violation of regulations and ordinances related to fire safety.” As to proximate causation, plaintiffs offered evidence that RR “was illegally operating a plastics-recycling business in the warehouse, that the fire could have been controlled if these materials had not been stored near the site of the fire’s origin, and that the presence of these materials allowed the fire to rapidly and intensely spread throughout the building and prevented firefighters from offensively attacking” it. A tenant may also be liable for a nuisance created on leased property that it controls. A “legal cause of plaintiffs’ damages was the uncontrollable fire at the warehouse and [RR’s] recycling and storage of plastic materials in the warehouse, contrary to local ordinances, supported a finding of negligent, reckless, or ultrahazardous conduct.” As to SR, the jury could find that its “continued operation in violation of regulations and ordinances related to fire safety and prevention, as well as its continued storage of hazardous materials, involved, if not negligent, reckless and hazardous conduct that contributed to the intensity and spread of the fire . . . .”