Personal injury action; Fall into the basement of an office building after stepping through an unlocked door; Prima facie negligence case; Kosmalski v. St. John’s Lutheran Church; Premises liability; Open & obvious dangers; Hoffner v. Lanctoe; Lugo v. Ameritech Corp., Inc.; Special aspects; Abke v. Vandenberg; Woodbury v. Bruckner (On Remand); Ordinary negligence; Laier v. Kitchen; Kachudas v. Invaders Self Auto Wash, Inc.

The court held that reasonable minds could disagree about whether the drop-off where plaintiff fell was open and obvious, and could also find that it was unreasonably dangerous. Further, the trial court erred by treating plaintiff’s claims as sounding only in premises liability. “Plaintiff, an invitee in an office building, opened and stepped through an unlocked door and fell from an unguarded precipice into an exposed basement below.” The trial court concluded that plaintiff pled claims sounding only in premises liability, and that her action was barred because there was no genuine factual dispute and the hazard was open and obvious and not unreasonably dangerous. The court noted that the trial court “required too much: a hazard is not open and obvious if the danger could be revealed upon casual observation; it is open and obvious if the danger would have been discovered by an average person upon casual inspection.” The court held that a genuine issue of material fact existed as to the open-and-obvious nature of the hazard, and the trial court erred in granting summary disposition to defendants on this ground. In addition, it concluded that “even if the drop-off was an open and obvious hazard,” a question of fact existed as to whether special aspects made it unreasonably dangerous. Finally, given that “plaintiff alleged a claim arising from the conduct of” defendant’s employee, the trial court also erred in concluding that her claims solely sounded in premises liability. Reversed and remanded.