Whether negligent entrustment & owner’s liability claims are barred by immunity under the Recreational Land Use Act (RUA); MCL 324.73301(1); Distinguishing Milne v Robinson

On remand, the court, affording the RUA broader application, found the trial court appropriately granted summary disposition to defendant on plaintiff’s negligent-entrustment claim. However, it reversed the trial court’s award of summary disposition on the owner’s liability claim and remanded. The court needed to “decide whether plaintiff’s claims for negligent entrustment and owner’s liability are barred by immunity under the RUA.” Plaintiff’s first claim asserted “that defendant negligently entrusted her ORV to [K], who negligently drove the ORV on defendant’s land and thereby caused plaintiff’s injuries.” Plaintiff contended “the immunity afforded to land owners by the RUA only applies to premises-liability claims. Our Supreme Court rejected that argument in Milne.” Instead, the court noted that “Milne instructs us to engage in a broader application of the RUA, which ‘limits a landowner’s liability under specified circumstances to gross negligence or willful and wanton misconduct if an injury occurs to someone they allowed to use their property for certain recreational purposes.’” The court held that plaintiff’s “owner’s-liability claim under MCL 257.401 is restricted by our Supreme Court’s decision in Milne.” It noted that the “question posed in that case was ‘whether the RUA applies to a statutory owner-liability claim under MCL 257.401(1) when a landowner owns a motor vehicle that they allow another to use for recreational purposes on their property.’” It noted that our “Supreme Court answered that question, stating that ‘the Legislature intended the RUA to limit an owner-liability claim.’” Thus, it held that “[t]he RUA applies to plaintiff’s proposed owner liability claim and requires her to demonstrate that defendant was grossly negligent or engaged in willful and wanton misconduct to prevail.” In this case, “in contrast to Milne, plaintiff has come forward with evidence of gross negligence, so her owner’s-liability claim is not entirely foreclosed by the RUA. But in her second amended complaint, plaintiff repeatedly alleges that ‘[K] negligently operated the ORV,’ causing her injuries.” Under Milne, “such allegations of simple negligence cannot support plaintiff’s owner’s-liability claim. Because the RUA applies to plaintiff’s owner’s-liability claim, plaintiff must ‘demonstrate that defendant was grossly negligent or engaged in willful and wanton misconduct to prevail.’” Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.