Merritt v. Department of Social Services

Full title: MERRITT v DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES

Court: Michigan Court of Appeals

Date published: Feb 8, 1990

184 Mich. App. 522 (Mich. Ct. App. 1990)

459 N.W.2d 10

Opinion

Docket No. 110802.

Decided February 8, 1990.

Gittleman, Paskel, Tashman Blumberg, P.C. (by Gary R. Blumberg), for plaintiffs.

Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Louis J. Caruso, Solicitor General, and A. Michael Leffler and Ronald W. Emery, Assistant Attorneys General, for defendant.

Before: REILLY, P.J., and CYNAR and T.M. BURNS,^_ JJ.

_ Former Court of Appeals judge, sitting on the Court of Appeals by assignment.

PER CURIAM.

This is an action for injuries suffered by plaintiff Inez Merritt when she slipped and fell on an accumulation of ice in a parking lot maintained by defendant Department of Social Services and located adjacent to defendant's building. In their complaint, plaintiffs relied on the public building exception to governmental immunity, MCL 691.1406; MSA 3.996(106). The trial court granted defendant's motion for summary disposition, and plaintiffs appeal as of right. We affirm.

Relying on Tilford v Wayne Co General Hosp, 403 Mich. 293; 269 N.W.2d 153 (1978), plaintiffs argue that the parking lot in this case is a "passageway" into defendant's building and ice on a passageway to a public building constitutes a dangerous or defective condition coming within the public building exception to governmental immunity. We disagree.

The scope of the public building exception has been narrowed considerably since Tilford, supra. See Reardon v Dep't of Mental Health, 430 Mich. 398; 424 N.W.2d 248 (1988). The Tilford Court held that an entrance way to a public building fell within the exception. While the holding in Tilford, supra, may still be viable since Reardon, supra, this Court has not extended the reach of the exception to parking lots, particularly where, as here, the facts indicate that entry and exit from defendant's building is not possible directly from the parking lot, but must rather be done from an entrance off of a sidewalk. See Abrams v Schoolcraft Community College, 178 Mich. App. 668; 444 N.W.2d 533 (1989) (slip and fall on ice in school parking lot); see also Hendricks v Southfield Public Schools, 178 Mich. App. 672; 444 N.W.2d 143 (1989) (fall from snow pile in school playground).

Affirmed.