Premises Liability and Landowner Duties
Premises questions turn on the entrant's status, the notice given, and the open and obvious doctrine, not on general foreseeability.
The three-tier framework
A trespasser receives only a duty to refrain from willful and wanton harm, subject to exceptions for known frequent trespassers and active operations. A licensee receives warning of known hidden dangers. An invitee - a business customer or public visitor - receives the highest duty: reasonable care to inspect, discover, and warn of or make safe unreasonable dangers.
Open and obvious
Under Lugo v Ameritech (2002), a possessor owes no duty to warn of an open and obvious danger unless special aspects make the condition unreasonably dangerous, such as an effectively unavoidable hazard or one imposing a severe risk not readily apparent. The inquiry is objective: would a reasonable person in the plaintiff's position have discovered the danger?
Conditions versus activities
Michigan distinguishes a defective condition from active conduct. A claim about how the premises were used or maintained sounds in ordinary negligence with a general duty of reasonable care; a claim about a defect in the premises sounds in premises liability. Plead the theory that fits.
Municipal sidewalks
For sidewalk defects, MCL 691.1402a bars recovery where the discontinuity is under two inches, and the written notice requirements of MCL 691.1404 apply.
Worked example
A shopper trips over a pallet protruding into the only aisle leading to the exit. The pallet is visible, but the hazard is effectively unavoidable on the available route, so the special-aspects exception preserves the claim despite the open and obvious doctrine.
Traps
Arguing mere distraction instead of special aspects; treating black ice on an obvious walking path as automatically actionable; suing over a 1.5-inch sidewalk lip; failing to identify the possessor with control of the premises.