Slip & Fall Lawyer in Michigan

Michigan's three-year personal injury statute of limitations under MCL 600.5805(2) governs premises liability claims. But the most time-sensitive evidence in any Michigan slip-and-fall case is surveillance footage — commercial property cameras, parking lot cameras, and building-entry cameras in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Ann Arbor overwrite footage in 24 to 72 hours under standard retention policies. A preservation demand issued within the first 24 hours of attorney engagement locks that footage. Simultaneously, the property's maintenance logs, prior inspection records, and prior incident reports — which bear directly on the "constructive notice" element (did the owner know or should they have known about the hazard?) — must be secured before the defense manages the property's document retention cycle.

The open and obvious doctrine in Michigan is the primary defense tool that landowners use to defeat Michigan premises liability claims before trial. Under Lugo v. Ameritech Corp., 464 Mich. 512 (2001), a hazard that would be "open and obvious" to a reasonably careful observer generally carries no duty to warn or remedy. The critical counter-argument is the "special aspects" exception: (1) the hazard is effectively unavoidable — no reasonable alternative route exists, or the only entrance is through the hazard; or (2) the risk of severe harm is unreasonably high even accounting for the hazard's visibility. Hoffner v. Lanctoe, 492 Mich. 450 (2012) specifically addressed black ice: because black ice is not visible to a reasonably careful observer even when looking at the surface, it may not qualify as "open and obvious" at all. Michigan winter premises cases — Detroit parking lots, Grand Rapids commercial entries, Lansing sidewalks — frequently involve black ice or compacted snow conditions that Hoffner places outside the open and obvious defense.

Michigan's modified comparative fault framework under MCL 600.2959 eliminates noneconomic damages (pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life) when the plaintiff is more than 50% at fault. In premises liability cases, Michigan defense counsel will attempt to assign fault to the plaintiff for knowingly walking through a visible hazard — invoking the open and obvious analysis at the liability stage and the comparative fault analysis at the damages stage simultaneously. The interaction between Lugo's open and obvious duty analysis and MCL 600.2959's fault apportionment creates a two-stage defense that Michigan attorneys must counter with: (1) establishing that the hazard was not open and obvious or falls under a special aspects exception; and (2) anchoring the plaintiff's comparative fault below 50% even if the hazard had some degree of visibility.

Michigan's Governmental Tort Liability Act (MCL 691.1401 et seq.) provides partial immunity to government entities with specific exceptions for highway defects (MCL 691.1402) and government building defects (MCL 691.1406). For premises liability claims against government entities — slips and falls in state office buildings, public university facilities, municipal buildings, or MDOT rest areas — the GTLA's 120-day written notice requirement under MCL 691.1404 is the most urgent deadline in the case. Missing the 120-day notice bars the government premises claim permanently. The notice must identify the location, date, and nature of the defect with reasonable specificity. An attorney who identifies a government defendant within days of the injury files the 120-day notice while simultaneously preserving surveillance footage and maintenance records.