Opinion
No. 141838.
July 29, 2011.
Court of Appeals No. 289208.
Leave to Appeal Denied July 29, 2011.
The application for leave to appeal the August 19, 2010, judgment of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is denied, because we are not persuaded that the question presented should be reviewed by this Court. The plaintiffs have failed to show that the defendant had a legal duty to them separate and distinct from its contractual obligations. Fultz v Union Commerce Assoc, 470 Mich 460, 467 (2004). Although a contracting party's assumption of contractual obligations does not extinguish or limit separately existing common-law or statutory tort duties owed to noncontracting third parties in the performance of a contract, Loweke v Ann Arbor Ceiling Partition Co, LLC, 489 Mich 157 (2011), the plaintiffs have not shown that the defendant had any such separate duty to them. The defendant, as the provider of a nondefective product to a customer, did not thereby acquire a duty to all unknown third parties who might be injured by the customer's misuse of the product.
CAVANAGH, MARILYN KELLY, and HATHAWAY, JJ., would vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand this case to the Macomb Circuit Court for further proceedings consistent with this Court's opinion in Loweke v Ann Arbor Ceiling Partition Co, LLC, 489 Mich 157 (2011).