Background
Hossam Alaquie delivered highly corrosive caustic soda to EES Coke Battery’s facility. An internal valve on EES’s storage tank had to be opened by an EES employee before the soda could enter. According to Alaquie, an employee twice assured him that the valve was open, but it remained closed.
Believing his own equipment was malfunctioning, Alaquie disconnected a pressurized hose without proper protective equipment. Caustic soda sprayed onto his face and into his eyes. He sued EES, alleging that a defective valve on its property caused his injuries.
The Wayne Circuit Court granted EES summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10), ruling “on duty only” that EES owed Alaquie no duty. It left causation unresolved, observing that factual questions might remain.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals reversed. Although Alaquie’s complaint did not label his claim “premises liability,” its gravamen was that a condition on EES’s land caused his injury. He also expressly presented the premises-liability theory in opposing summary disposition and at the hearing, so the issue was preserved.
Because Alaquie entered EES’s property with permission for a business purpose, he was an invitee. EES therefore owed him the common-law duty to exercise reasonable care to protect him from unreasonable risks of harm caused by dangerous conditions on the land. That duty arose from the land possessor-invitee relationship and existed independently of whether the closed valve ultimately qualified as a dangerous or defective condition.
The court rejected Alaquie’s alternative theories. EES had no freestanding duty, merely because it contracted for the delivery, to supervise the work or ensure that he unloaded the chemical safely; his employer was generally responsible for workplace safety. EES’s internal operating procedures also did not independently establish a legal duty. The court remanded without deciding breach or proximate causation.
Key Takeaways
- A business visitor is an invitee to whom a premises possessor owes a duty of reasonable care concerning unreasonable risks from dangerous conditions on the land.
- The existence of that duty follows from the parties’ premises possessor-invitee relationship; whether a dangerous condition actually existed concerns other elements of the claim.
- The ruling addresses duty only and does not determine whether EES breached its duty or proximately caused Alaquie’s injuries.
Why It Matters
A court may not eliminate an invitee-duty premises claim at summary disposition simply by concluding that the alleged property condition was not dangerous. The existence of the duty and the proof of a dangerous condition are distinct questions.
The unpublished decision also illustrates that Michigan courts determine a claim’s nature from its substance rather than its label, while keeping premises liability separate from alleged duties based solely on a delivery contract or a defendant’s internal policies.