Governmental immunity; Governmental Tort & Liability Act (GTLA); Duty; “Gross negligence”; Proximate cause

In this gross negligence action involving a claim of governmental immunity by defendant-Wilson, the court held that plaintiffs did not establish that he “owed them a common-law duty without regard to his status as a government employee.” Also, plaintiffs’ evidence in support of establishing a fact question was unsupported by the record. Finally, “his conduct was not ‘the’ proximate cause of plaintiffs’ damages.” Thus, the court reversed the trial court’s order denying his motion for summary disposition and remanded. The case arose “out of the renovation, rental inspection, and eventual sale of a condemned property.” Defendant (“the building official of the city’s Building Safety Department”) contended that “plaintiffs failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact as to whether his conduct amounted to gross negligence that was the proximate cause of plaintiffs’ injury.” Specifically, defendant argued: “1) he did not owe a legal duty to plaintiffs, 2) no reasonable jury would conclude that his conduct amounted to gross negligence, and 3) his actions were not the proximate cause of plaintiffs’ alleged harm.” The court agreed. As to duty, regarding “the relationship of the parties, while defendant knew the prior homeowner of the Frank Street property, he did not know that the house was eventually sold to plaintiffs. Accordingly, defendant had no relationship with plaintiffs until they arrived in the office to request a rental certificate. Defendant testified that he did not know of the involved events and ‘until that first day when [plaintiff-Mr. Abney] came in, [defendant] saw nothing. [Defendant] knew nothing about it until that day.’ Thus, the parties lacked a relationship, which weighs against the finding of a duty. Nor was the harm to plaintiffs foreseeable.” Further, the court noted that “defendant testified that the burden of individually tracking condemned properties 'would take probably five full-time people . . . on a daily basis,' and that the demolition list 'had over a thousand properties on it.'” Thus, imposing the burden to disclose a property’s condemnation status on defendant would be severe. This is bolstered by the fact that this duty is already imposed on a property seller by the city’s municipal code: ‘The seller or transferor of any property . . . shall give written notice, on forms distributed by the city and available from the city assessor’s office, whether the residential property in question is currently condemned or subject to demolition procedure[.]’” The court concluded that especially “in light of this existing seller obligation, the nature of the risk presented to plaintiffs is mitigated through other actors and does not suggest imposition of a duty on defendant.” As to gross negligence, the court held that while “reasonable minds could differ regarding whether defendant’s conduct was negligent, it does not amount to gross negligence under the GTLA.” Finally, as to proximate cause, the court held that “especially in light of the fact that the duty of disclosure is on the seller of a property, defendant is not the ‘most immediate, efficient, and direct cause of the [plaintiff’s] injuries.’ ”