ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. (AP) - 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.
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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.
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