Michigan Court of Appeals; Docket # 337616; Unpublished
Judges Kelly, Markey, and Fort Hood per Curiam
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: Not Applicable; Link to Opinion
STATUTORY INDEXING:
General / Miscellaneous [§3135]
TOPICAL INDEXING:
CASE SUMMARY:
In this unanimous unpublished per curiam opinion, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s order for summary disposition in favor of Defendant Yolanda Orzechowski (“Yolanda”) regarding the application of the sudden emergency doctrine to a negligence case against Plaintiff Phillip Orzechowski (“Phillip”). The Court of Appeals reversed because there was a question of fact if Yolanda created the emergency herself and whether the sudden emergency doctrine is applicable when ice is the cause of the emergency is a jury question.
On December 14, 2014, Phillip was traveling from a restaurant to a car dealership with his wife, Yolanda, following him. Phillip stated that he did not have trouble handling his vehicle while driving until he reached the crest of a hill on Haggerty Road. At the crest of the hill Dunlap’s vehicle slid from the northbound lane into Phillip’s southbound lane. The two vehicles collided and a few seconds later Yolanda rear-ended Phillip’s vehicle. Yolanda stated that when she crested the hill on Haggerty she saw the collision, applied her brakes, and was unable to stop because of black ice on the road. Phillip subsequently brought a negligence claim against both Yolanda and Dunlap. Yolanda asserted the sudden emergency defense and the trial court granted summary disposition in her favor.
The Court found that there was a question of fact in this case that needed to be submitted to the fact finder. The Court examined the negligence claim and found that a driver who rear-ends another driver is presumed to be negligent under MCL 257.402(a). However, this presumption can be rebutted by the sudden emergency doctrine. The Court cited to McKinney v Anderson, 373 Mich 414, 419 (1964) and stated that the sudden-emergency doctrine applies “when a collision is shown to have occurred as the result of a sudden emergency not of the defendants’ own making.” The Court found that there was evidence that Yolanda was driving too fast and too close to Phillip. This created a question of whether the emergency was one of Yolanda’s own making. The Court further noted that whether the ice constitutes a sudden emergency is a question for the jury, not a question for the court to decide as a matter of law. So, even if Yolanda was driving reasonably, the Court explained that when ice causes a driver to lose control of her vehicle, that is a question of fact for the jury.
“Moreover, Young and Vsetsula make clear that the application of the sudden-emergency doctrine is a jury question, even in situations where the defendant was apparently driving at a reasonable speed when he or she hit a patch of ice and lost control of his or her vehicle. Thus, even without evidence that Yolanda was driving too fast for conditions, there would still be a jury question. See Young, 182 Mich App at 544; Vsetsula, 187 Mich App at 677. Accordingly, on this record, the trial court erred by granting summary disposition in Yolanda’s favor because there is a material question of fact with regard to whether Yolanda encountered a sudden emergency or whether she was driving negligently when she rear-ended Phillip’s vehicle.”
Thus, the court vacated the trial court’s order for summary disposition and remanded the case back to the lower court for reconsideration.
