Michigan Supreme Court Tosses Suit over Icy Slip-and-Fall

A traumatic fall in a dark, icy parking lot wasn’t enough to sway the Michigan Supreme Court.

The justices last week reversed a decision by the state appeals court and said the conditions should have been “open and obvious” to Marguerite Ragnoli.

Ragnoli fell outside a medical building in Rochester Hills. She says low lighting prevented her from seeing the ice. She broke her wrist and has had multiple surgeries.

The appeals court said a jury should sort out any liability. But Michigan’s legal threshold can make it hard to take a slip-and-fall lawsuit to trial. The Supreme Court says winter weather and ice elsewhere on the property should have been a warning to the 56-year-old Ragnoli.

Justice Richard Bernstein was the only dissenter.