Legal sufficiency of a complaint; Prima facie negligence claim; Respondeat superior; Motor vehicle owner’s liability; MCL 257.401; Failure to properly address plaintiff’s request for leave to amend his complaint; MCR 2.116(I)(5); MCR 2.118(A)(2) & (C)(1)

While the court held that defendant was properly granted summary disposition on the ground that plaintiff’s first amended complaint was legally insufficient, it concluded that “the trial court abused its discretion by failing to properly address plaintiff’s request for leave to amend his complaint.” Plaintiff asserted that he sustained a serious impairment of body function due to an accident while riding in a vehicle driven by defendant-Marina Transportation’s employee and that defendant “was vicariously liable for the driver’s negligence.” After a prior remand from the court, the trial court granted defendant’s motion for summary disposition “under MCR 2.116(C)(8), but never addressed plaintiff’s request to amend his complaint.” On appeal, the court noted that his “first amended complaint indicates that he listed John Doe and Marina under the heading ‘vehicular negligence.’ Plaintiff then asserted that Marina drove the vehicle in which he rode on the day of the collision. Although Marina’s driver need not be specifically named in the complaint under the owner’s liability statute . . . Marina is correct that the complete lack of reference to negligence committed by a driver employed by Marina in the first amended complaint suggests that plaintiff failed to plead a valid negligence claim under a theory of respondeat superior.” Plaintiff also conceded that the complaint alleged “that Marina violated MCL 357.402, which does not exist.” But the court found that, regardless of any typographical errors, his claim as to MCL 257.401 asserted that Doe and Marina “are liable for vehicular negligence because they each negligently operated vehicles and left the scene of the collision. There is no mention of Marina Transportation’s employee negligently operating the vehicle, which would result in [its] liability under respondeat superior or the owner’s-liability statute.” Thus, the court held that the trial court did not err in granting Marina’s motion under MCR 2.116(C)(8). But it noted that plaintiff made his “respondeat-superior argument in everything but name—as evidenced by the fact that Marina consistently defended against [his] negligence claim by arguing that [he] could not establish a question of fact as to whether Marina’s driver was negligent.” And there was no evidence the trial court entertained plaintiff’s request to amend at all. “On remand, [it] must specifically address whether [he] should be permitted to amend his complaint.” Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.