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Legal Memorandum: Landowner's Duty to Warn in MI

Issue: Under Michigan law, what is the landowner’s duty to warn in cases involving an injured child or adult?

Area of Law: Personal Injury & Negligence, Real Estate Law
Keywords: Landowner's duty; Duty to warn
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Cited Cases: 198 N.W.2d 843; 147 Mich. App. 164; 363 N.W.2d 641; 337 N.W.2d 73; 378 N.W.2d 772; 274 F. Supp. 246; 173 Mich. App. 222; 404 N.W.2d 217; 429 Mich. 66; 416 N.W.2d 314; 159 Mich. App. 766; 433 N.W.2d 413; 443 N.W.2d 105; 196 N.W. 398; 383 N.W.2d 606; 373 Mich. 198; 175 N.W.2d 759; 375 N.W.2d 384; 412 N.W.2d 213; 199 N.W.2d 833; 225 Mich. 311; 145 Mich. App. 620; 418 Mich. 898; 141 Mich. App. 712; 165 Mich. App. 431; 432 Mich. 377; 406 N.W.2d 302; 428 N.W.2d 759; 407 N.W.2d 74
Cited Statutes: Restatement (Second) of Torts § 339; Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 330.201(1); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 332; Restatement (Second) of Torts § 330
Date: 04/01/2001

           Unlike many other jurisdictions, Michigan has not yet abandoned the distinctions between the duties owed to an entrant on the land based on the entrant’s status as an invitee, licensee or trespasser.

The duty owed to invitees,*FN1 as stated in Conerly v. Liptzen, 41 Mich. App. 238, 199 N.W.2d 833, 836 (1972), is "only to exercise reasonable care for their protection."

But the obligation of reasonable care is a full one, applicable in all respects, and extending to everything that threatens the invitee with an unreasonable risk of harm.  The occupier must not only use care not to injure the visitor by negligent activities, and warn him of latent dangers of which the occupier knows, but he must also inspect the premises to discover possible dangerous conditions of which he does not know, and take reasonable precautions to protect the invitee from dangers which are foreseeable from the arrangement or use.

 

Id., 199 N.W.2d at 836 (quoting Prosser and Keeton, Torts § 61, at 402-03 (3d. ed.))  Accord Wymer v. Holmes, 429 Mich. 66, 412 N.W.2d 213, 215 n.1 (1987).

In Carlisi v. City of Marysville, […]

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