Slip Fall

When giving notice to a governmental agency you must be very specific or your case may be dismissed.

Holding that the plaintiff did not sufficiently clarify the exact location of the pothole until after the statutory notice period expired, the court concluded that the trial court was bound to dismiss her claim. Thus, the court reversed the trial court's order denying the defendant-City's summary disposition motion and remanded for entry of summary disposition in the City's favor. Plaintiff left a saloon located on Michigan Avenue in the City and walked to the side of the building, which faces St. Lawrence Street. She turned onto St. Lawrence, where she had parked her vehicle, tripped on a pothole in the St. Lawrence Street roadway, and broke her ankle. She submitted written notice to the City about her injury 17 days after her accident, describing the site as "a defective street located in front of" the saloon. She also enclosed photos depicting the defect. Plaintiff sued the City 137 days after her accident, asserting that her claim fell within the highway exception to governmental immunity. She alleged that she was injured while walking on the public sidewalk at or near the saloon when "she tripped over a defective sidewalk/pavement." Plaintiff did not specify that the pothole was on St. Lawrence Street until her deposition 228 days after her accident. The court noted that she misidentified the defect's location in her initial notice and thus, clearly did not provide a "specific description of the location." This rendered her notice defective. Further, the complaint was filed outside the 120-day notice period, so plaintiff could not rectify the deficiency of her initial notice via the complaint. The complaint also did not provide an accurate "exact location" for the alleged defect, since the complaint asserted that plaintiff tripped on a sidewalk, not the roadway, and described the location as at or near the saloon on Michigan Avenue. "The City had no notice that the pothole was actually located on St. Lawrence Street, rather than on Michigan Avenue or an adjacent sidewalk, until" plaintiff's deposition, which was conducted 108 days after the statutory notice period expired. "Absent the requisite notice, the City was immune from liability and plaintiff was precluded from seeking judicial relief." The court rejected her argument that the photos provided to the City with her initial notice sufficiently supplemented her written description to specify the exact location of the defect. One photo depicted a pothole on a side street very near the intersection with a main highway, but it did not include a street sign or any other identifying feature. There was no way to determine the name of the street on which the pothole was located from the photo. A second photo depicted the sign in front of the saloon, but did "nothing to delineate the name of the side street on which the pothole is located." The third photo depicted "a focused view of the pothole alone." While it was useful in specifying the exact nature of the defect, it did nothing to "specify the exact location."