1. Introduction and Background
This case concerns the boundary between judicial screening of negligence claims and a jury’s responsibility to allocate comparative fault. It also raises a procedural question: whether an appellate court should reject a newly added negligence claim before discovery and trial-court consideration have meaningfully occurred.
Before dawn on January 18, 2023, defendant Lorenzo Reed was operating a garbage truck for GFL Environmental Services USA in Garden City. Because the parking lot serving a dumpster lacked sufficient space to turn the truck around, Reed backed onto Ford Road. Plaintiff Darrin Harper, traveling in the curb-side lane, struck the truck from behind without braking or swerving. A surveillance camera across the street recorded the collision.
The parties disputed important circumstances surrounding the crash. Reed maintained that he backed cautiously and was stationary when struck. He also attributed statements to Harper suggesting distraction, including distraction involving a phone. Harper denied the phone allegation, and the police report marked him as “not distracted.” Reed acknowledged that he never saw Harper’s vehicle before impact. Police attributed fault to Reed, who received a citation later reduced to impeding traffic.
Harper sued Reed for negligence and GFL under theories of vicarious liability and owner’s liability. He later obtained permission to add a direct negligence claim against GFL concerning the servicing of an allegedly unsafe dumpster. CWR II, Inc., also appears as a defendant in the caption, but the supplied opinion does not explain its role or separately analyze its liability.
The trial court denied defendants’ motion for summary disposition, concluding that comparative fault presented a jury question. The Court of Appeals reversed. The Supreme Court declined review, over Justice Welch’s dissent.
3. Analysis
A. Statutory and Procedural Framework
The central statutory threshold appears in MCL 500.3135(2)(b): damages governed by that provision may not be assessed in favor of a party who is more than 50% at fault. The distinction matters. A finding of exactly 50% fault does not trigger that particular bar.
Under MCL 600.6304(2), allocation requires consideration of both the nature of each person’s conduct and the causal relationship between that conduct and the claimed damages. The dissent also invoked MCL 600.2957(1), emphasizing the fact-finder’s role in allocation, and cited MCL 600.2958 and MCL 600.2959 in discussing comparative responsibility.
These principles operate within MCR 2.116(C)(10), which permits summary disposition when no genuine issue of material fact exists. The court must view the evidence in the nonmoving party’s favor. Consequently, defendants needed to establish not simply that Harper was negligent, but that no reasonable juror could assign him 50% or less of the comparative fault.
B. Precedents Cited and Their Significance
Harper v Reed
The unpublished December 22, 2025 Court of Appeals opinion was the decision under review, rather than an independent source of controlling precedent. As described in the dissent, the panel relied on Harper’s failure to take evasive action, Reed’s deposition testimony, and defendants’ reconstruction expert to conclude that Harper exceeded the statutory fault threshold. It also rejected the dumpster-related claim because the alleged harm was not foreseeable.
Justice Welch’s disagreement centered on the panel’s method: she considered its analysis insufficiently comparative, dependent on disputed credibility assessments, and premature concerning the new claim.
Rodriguez v Solar of Mich, Inc, 191 Mich App 483 (1991)
Rodriguez v Solar of Mich, Inc supplied two connected propositions. First, the standards used to evaluate a plaintiff’s comparative negligence are indistinguishable from those used to evaluate a defendant’s negligence. Second, a plaintiff’s failure to exercise reasonable care ordinarily presents a jury question unless reasonable minds cannot differ or an ascertainable public-policy consideration requires otherwise.
For Justice Welch, this authority supported examining Reed’s conduct alongside Harper’s. The plaintiff’s apparent inattention could not substitute for a comparison of both drivers’ responsibility.
Lowe v Estate Motors Ltd, 428 Mich 439 (1987)
Lowe v Estate Motors Ltd appears through the dissent’s quotation of Rodriguez v Solar of Mich, Inc. Its role is therefore indirect: it supports the proposition that comparable negligence standards govern the evaluation of plaintiffs and defendants. The supplied text does not discuss its facts or develop a separate application of its holding.
Buhl v Oak Park, 507 Mich 236 (2021)
Buhl v Oak Park provided the governing summary-disposition framework. Evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion, and judgment is appropriate only when no genuine issue of material fact remains.
This requirement was central because the record contained competing accounts of distraction, safe backing, and the truck’s position. Under the dissent’s analysis, the panel could not resolve those conflicts in defendants’ favor merely because their account was consistent with parts of the evidence.
El-Khalil v Oakwood Healthcare, Inc, 504 Mich 152 (2019)
Quoted through Buhl v Oak Park, El-Khalil v Oakwood Healthcare, Inc supplied the definition of a genuine factual issue: the record leaves open a matter on which reasonable minds might differ. The relevant disagreement here concerned not only whether Harper was negligent, but whether his relative responsibility necessarily exceeded 50%.
McDuffie v Neal, ___ Mich ___; 21 NW3d 205 (2025)
McDuffie v Neal was the dissent’s closest factual and doctrinal analogy. There, video showed a decedent attempting to pass a turning truck on the right. The Court of Appeals concluded that no reasonable juror could place the decedent’s fault at 50% or less, but the Supreme Court reversed because other evidence supported fault by the truck driver.
The precedent served two functions. It demonstrated that video evidence of a plaintiff’s unsafe conduct does not necessarily settle comparative fault, and it emphasized that credibility determinations belong to the fact-finder rather than courts deciding or reviewing summary disposition.
Justice Welch viewed the same reasoning as applicable here: Harper’s failure to react did not eliminate evidence that Reed entered the roadway unsafely. Her conclusion that McDuffie v Neal required reversal, however, remained a dissenting application of that precedent.
Huggins v Scripter, 469 Mich 898 (2003)
Huggins v Scripter appears within the dissent’s account of McDuffie v Neal, supporting the proposition that the statutory bar does not resolve a case when reasonable minds can differ about which driver was more at fault. The supplied opinion does not describe its underlying facts, so its significance here is limited to that supporting principle.
Doe v Gen Motors, LLC, 511 Mich 1038 (2023)
Doe v Gen Motors, LLC supplied the discovery standard relevant to the dumpster claim. Summary disposition is generally premature while discovery on a disputed issue remains incomplete, but incomplete discovery does not automatically prevent judgment. The decisive question is whether further discovery offers a fair likelihood of uncovering factual support for the opposing party.
Justice Welch considered that possibility meaningful because Reed testified that the dumpster’s location left him no alternative to backing onto a multilane road. That testimony supported further inquiry; it did not itself establish GFL’s negligence.
C. Legal Reasoning
1. Negligence and Comparative Fault Are Different Questions
The dissent’s central criticism was that the Court of Appeals moved too quickly from evidence of Harper’s negligence to a conclusion that his fault exceeded 50%. A driver’s failure to brake or swerve may support negligence. It does not automatically establish that the driver bears most of the responsibility for the collision.
The comparison also had to account for Reed’s conduct. MCL 257.652 requires a driver entering a highway from a private driveway to yield to approaching vehicles. Reed backed a commercial truck onto a 40-mile-per-hour road in darkness, acknowledged a blind spot, and never saw Harper approaching. A reasonable juror could regard that conduct as equally or more culpable than Harper’s failure to respond.
Nor would proof that Harper could have avoided the collision necessarily settle the allocation. Avoidability supports a causal contribution, but comparative fault requires evaluating the other driver’s contribution as well.
2. Conflicting Accounts Could Not Be Resolved Through Credibility Choices
Several facts remained contested. Reed described cautious backing and attributed admissions of distraction to Harper. Other evidence included Harper’s denial of phone use, the report marking him as not distracted, the police assessment of improper backing, and Reed’s alteration of his incident report from backing into “traffic” to backing into “the street.”
Justice Welch considered the panel’s treatment selective: it relied on Harper’s statement in the police report that he had not seen the truck while discounting portions unfavorable to Reed. Her objection concerned judicial resolution of conflicting evidence, not a rule that police conclusions conclusively establish civil fault. The order also did not resolve every possible evidentiary question concerning those materials.
3. Video and Expert Evidence Had Important Limits
The video showed the collision from a pixelated side view, not from Harper’s position. It therefore did not conclusively establish what an eastbound driver could see or when the truck became visible. Defendants’ expert acknowledged uncertainty about how long the truck had occupied its initial recorded position and when it would have become visible to Harper.
The expert also relied on assumptions concerning Harper’s speed and the visibility of flashing lights. Even accepting the conclusion that normal braking could have prevented impact, Justice Welch reasoned that this established, at most, a basis for attributing some fault to Harper. It did not necessarily establish a majority share.
The resulting principle is limited but important: video and reconstruction evidence may support summary disposition when sufficiently conclusive, but their existence does not itself eliminate disputes about perspective, visibility, credibility, or relative responsibility.
4. An Opposing Affidavit Was Not the Only Way to Establish a Dispute
The panel criticized Harper for failing to submit his own affidavit or testimony explaining his inaction. The dissent responded that the nonmoving party’s obligation is to identify a genuine factual issue, not invariably to provide a personal affidavit. Citing MCR 2.116(G)(2) and (4), Justice Welch considered Reed’s deposition, the crash report, and scene photographs sufficient for that purpose.
5. The Dumpster Claim Required a Developed Record
The new claim concerned GFL’s own alleged negligence in servicing an unsafe dumpster arrangement, distinct from its potential responsibility for Reed’s driving. Although the panel characterized the issue in terms of dumpster placement, the opinion does not establish who physically selected or installed that location.
The trial court authorized amendment and further discovery after defendants had moved for summary disposition. It had not yet decided the new claim. Justice Welch therefore objected to an appellate foreseeability ruling made before the parties developed the relevant facts.
Her position did not establish that harm was foreseeable or that incomplete discovery always defeats summary disposition. Rather, Reed’s testimony supplied a concrete reason to investigate whether the servicing arrangement created a foreseeable road hazard.
D. Potential Impact and Limits
Immediate effect. The Court of Appeals judgment remained in place. The dissent neither restored Harper’s claims nor directed a jury trial.
Comparative-fault litigation. The dissent offers a persuasive framework for opposing motions that identify a plaintiff’s negligence without adequately comparing the defendant’s conduct. It emphasizes that a potentially decisive statutory percentage requires a genuinely comparative analysis.
Video-based motions. Future litigants may draw on the distinction between a recording of an accident and proof of what a driver could perceive. Camera angle, image quality, and timing can affect whether footage conclusively resolves a factual dispute.
Discovery and appellate review. The discussion reinforces the importance of identifying specific evidence that further discovery could uncover. It also cautions against resolving newly pleaded, fact-dependent theories on appeal before meaningful trial-court consideration.
Precedential restraint. These are potential persuasive implications, not new binding holdings. The denial neither supplies a merits ruling on the dissent’s arguments nor displaces the precedents it discusses.