Harris-Fields v. Syze

600 N.W.2d 611, 461 Mich. 188
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 28, 1999
DocketDocket 112051
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 600 N.W.2d 611 (Harris-Fields v. Syze) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Harris-Fields v. Syze, 600 N.W.2d 611, 461 Mich. 188 (Mich. 1999).

Opinions

Per Curiam.

The plaintiffs decedent was a Michigan State Police Trooper who was standing on the shoulder of a highway near the driver’s door of a vehicle that he had stopped for a traffic violation. He was struck and killed by a vehicle driven by the defendant. Plaintiff brought this wrongful death action, alleging that the defendant had been negligent in the operation of her motor vehicle, and that this negligence caused the decedent’s death.

Defendant moved for summary disposition, asserting that the action was barred by the fireman’s rule.1 The circuit court agreed and granted the motion.

After initially reversing, the Court of Appeals granted rehearing and affirmed the summary disposition for the defendant.2

We conclude that the fireman’s rule does not bar an action in a case such as this in which the alleged negligence of the defendant was unrelated to the events that brought the officer to the location where the injury occurred. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

[190]*190I

The facts of this case are tragic, but simple. On August 27, 1994, plaintiffs decedent, Manuel Fields, executed a traffic stop on 1-94 in Jackson County. Both his patrol vehicle and the stopped car were on the shoulder of the highway. Trooper Fields was standing at the driver’s door of the vehicle, also off the traveled portion of the highway, when a car driven by defendant Harriet Syze veered onto the shoulder, striking and killing him.3

Plaintiff filed a complaint in Jackson Circuit Court on March 26, 1996. It alleged that defendant breached a number of duties, all of which appear to sound in ordinary negligence (failure to operate the motor vehicle with due care and caution, failure to maintain control, etc.).

Defendant answered the complaint, raised an affirmative defense of the fireman’s rule, and filed a motion for summary disposition on that ground. On October 17, 1996, the circuit court granted defendant’s motion.

Plaintiff appealed of right to the Court of Appeals. That Court has issued two opinions. In the first it reversed and remanded for further proceedings in light of Gibbons v Caraway, 455 Mich 314; 565 NW2d 663 (1997).4 However, defendant moved for rehearing, which the court granted. On rehearing, the panel reversed itself and affirmed the grant of summary disposition in favor of defendant.

[191]*191Plaintiff has filed an application for leave to appeal to this Court.

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The issue raised in this case involves the scope of and exceptions to the so-called fireman’s rule, which we adopted in Kreski v Modern Wholesale Electric Supply Co, 429 Mich 347; 415 NW2d 178 (1987). There, we noted that the rule is deeply rooted in the common law and that, when faced with a question whether to adopt it, courts have overwhelmingly been in favor of doing so. As we stated the general rule in Kreski:

The fireman’s rule is based on practicability and common sense. While the rule may have slightly different permutations among the states, its most basic formulation is that a fire fighter or police officer may not recover damages from a private party for negligence in the creation of the reason for the safety officer’s presence. [429 Mich 358.]

The fact situations presented by the two cases decided in Kreski involved premises liability claims, out of which the fireman’s rule originally developed. In adopting the rule, we made clear that the decision did not reach questions involving exceptions that have been developed in states employing a fireman’s rule. We explained:

As a result of examining the policy rationales supporting the fireman’s rule, we are persuaded that considerations of fairness and public policy compel us to adopt the rule for Michigan. However, we must clarify that we are not attempting to delineate the precise parameters of the rule in this opinion. Several exceptions involving factual situations [192]*192not presented here have developed in the states employing a fireman’s rule.
For example, the alleged acts and omissions in the instant cases all occurred prior to plaintiffs’ arrivals. There are no allegations of wrongdoing or negligence after plaintiffs were on the scene. Further, neither plaintiff has alleged negligence rising to the level of wilful, wanton, or intentional misconduct. In both cases, the incidents took place when the premises were closed. Therefore, we are not presented with a situation in which the injuries occurred when the buildings were open to the public for business.
Next, the building owners or occupiers were not on the premises at the time of the incidents, or even alleged to have known of plaintiffs’ presence. Thus, there are no allegations that the owners misled plaintiffs regarding the condition of the buildings or the nature of the activities carried on inside. Similarly, there is no allegation that defendants had a present ability to warn of danger on the premises. Neither are there allegations that the fire in Kreski was intentionally set or was the product of illegal activities.
All of these scenarios have been faced by courts in fine tuning their fireman’s rules to best balance the underlying rationales with the interest of allowing recovery when those rationales are not implicated. By adopting a fireman’s rule on the basis of public policy, we also will be able to flexibly address the different fact patterns as they are presented. [429 Mich at 370-371.]

Since Kreski, we have had occasion to address the fireman’s rule on two other occasions. In Woods v City of Warren, 439 Mich 186; 482 NW2d 696 (1992), the plaintiff was a police officer who engaged in a high-speed chase of a stolen automobile. He was injured when his car hit a patch of ice and he lost control. He sued the city on the basis of the condition of the road. We held that the fireman’s rule barred the action. The majority emphasized that the Court was proceeding on a case-by-case basis.

[193]*193Our most recent decision to address the rule is Gibbons v Caraway, supra. It involved two cases, one of which was factually similar to the instant one.5 Officer Gibbons was directing traffic at the scene of an automobile accident and was struck by a car driven by one of the defendants.6 As in the instant case, the events that led to the officer’s presence at the scene and the duties he was performing were unrelated to the alleged negligence causing the injury. In Gibbons the cause of the officer’s presence was the accident; in the instant case it was the alleged traffic violation by the motorist whom Trooper Fields had stopped.

Though there was no majority opinion in Gibbons, six justices concluded that the fireman’s rule did not preclude the plaintiff’s action.7

Justice Weaver said that the fireman’s rule should be limited to premises liability cases, and thus was inapplicable.

Justice Boyle, joined by Justice Brickley, said that on the facts of the case the fireman’s rule did not bar the claim for damages because the alleged wrongdoing causing the injury resulted from “wanton, reck[194]

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Harris-Fields v. Syze
600 N.W.2d 611 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1999)

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Bluebook (online)
600 N.W.2d 611, 461 Mich. 188, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/harris-fields-v-syze-mich-1999.