Background
Abbey Postlewait was riding her bicycle on a public sidewalk adjoining Storage Group LLC’s property when she attempted to turn at a corner where the sidewalk narrowed substantially. Her handlebars clipped the company’s chain-link fence, causing her to fall and sustain injuries requiring medical treatment.
Postlewait sued Storage Group for premises liability, alleging that its fence rendered the sidewalk unreasonably and unlawfully narrow. Her consultant attributed the sidewalk’s configuration to work performed in 2020 by the Village of Fruitport and the Michigan Department of Transportation. Storage Group had purchased its property in 2006 and had neither moved nor modified the preexisting fence. The circuit court granted Storage Group summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10), finding that it owed Postlewait no duty.
The Court’s Holding
The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed. Because Storage Group did not own or possess the public sidewalk, premises-liability duties based on a visitor’s status as an invitee, licensee, or trespasser did not govern conditions on that sidewalk. An abutting landowner generally has no duty concerning a public sidewalk unless a statute imposes one, the owner physically intrudes into the public way, or the owner creates or increases the hazard. The fence did not intrude onto the sidewalk, and Storage Group did not create or worsen the narrowing caused by the 2020 sidewalk reconstruction.
The court also rejected Postlewait’s theory that political signs attached to the fence created a blind corner. Even assuming the signs breached a duty or violated a local ordinance, the record did not establish that the obstructed view caused the crash. Postlewait’s counsel acknowledged that a typical bicycle’s handlebars were probably wider than the sidewalk at its narrowest point and that she would have crashed regardless of the signs. Any claim that she might have reacted differently with a clearer view was speculative.
Key Takeaways
- Premises liability did not apply because the accident arose from a condition on a public sidewalk that the defendant neither owned nor possessed.
- An adjoining landowner is generally not liable for a public-way hazard it did not create, increase, or physically intrude upon.
- An ordinance violation is only evidence of negligence and is not actionable without an independently owed duty.
- A negligence claim cannot survive summary disposition when the asserted causal connection rests only on speculation.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the limits of an abutting Michigan landowner’s responsibility for conditions on public sidewalks. Merely maintaining a longstanding fence at the property line did not make the owner responsible for a sidewalk later reconstructed too narrowly by governmental entities.
It also illustrates that plaintiffs must separately establish duty and causation. Evidence that signs may have reduced visibility could not avoid summary disposition where the record indicated that the sidewalk’s width—not the obstructed view—caused the bicycle to strike the fence.