Premises liability; Injuries from an electrical shock; Duty; Res ipsa loquitur

The court held that “the trial court did not err by concluding that there was no material factual dispute concerning whether there was an unreasonable risk of harm caused by a dangerous condition on the premises and thus defendant did not owe a duty to plaintiff.” Also, res ipsa loquitur did not apply to plaintiff’s claim. The parties presumed “that plaintiff was an invitee as a purported tenant and thus defendant owed plaintiff a duty ‘to exercise reasonable care to protect [him] from an unreasonable risk of harm caused by a dangerous condition of the land.’” Plaintiff alleged “that defendant created a dangerous condition by leaving the RV plugged into the home’s electrical system during the windstorm while the RV was parked near the location where an energized power line had previously fallen.” But the parties’ “experts testified that connection of the RV to the home electrical system was safe. And neither expert took issue with the location where the RV was parked. Although both experts agreed that the extension cords were the pathway that brought the electricity into the house, they both opined that the voltage would not have passed through the cords if the power line had not come down.” Thus, the “issue whether defendant owed plaintiff a duty rests upon whether plaintiff’s injury was reasonably foreseeable.” The court found that plaintiff “failed to show that the RV’s connection to the home’s electrical system constituted an unreasonably dangerous condition that posed an unreasonable risk of harm to plaintiff and thus defendant did not owe a duty to plaintiff.” It also found “no merit in plaintiff’s argument that MCR 2.116(G)(3) required defendant to support his motion for summary disposition with an affidavit.” Further, the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur was not applicable to plaintiff’s claim. He had “not presented any evidence to establish that defendant was negligent. Plaintiff must produce some evidence of wrongdoing beyond the mere happening of the event. There was no evidence that the extension cord was negligently used or that the RV was negligently parked.”