NANCY DENTAMARO SEGUNA V CITY OF DETROIT

Michigan Supreme Court
Lansing, Michigan
Megan K. Cavanagh,
Chief Justice
Brian K. Zahra
Richard H. Bernstein
Elizabeth M. Welch
Kyra H. Bolden
Kimberly A. Thomas
Noah P. Hood,
Justices
Order
July 2, 2026
SC: 169761
COA: 371007
Wayne CC: 23-015717-NO
NANCY DENTAMARO SEGUNA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v
CITY OF DETROIT,
Defendant-Appellee.
On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal the January 29, 2026
judgment of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not
persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.
WELCH, J. (dissenting).
I would have peremptorily reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded to the trial
court for further proceedings because I believe that plaintiff’s notice of intent to file a claim
stated the location and nature of the roadway defect with sufficient specificity. MCL
691.1404(1) does not require a street address or technical description of the location, and
courts must not read in such extra requirements.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
While visiting Eastern Market in Detroit, plaintiff Nancy Seguna tripped and was
injured. Within 120 days of the accident, plaintiff sent defendant, the city of Detroit, a
notice of intent to file a claim “resulting from personal injuries sustained in an injury
incident that occurred at Alfred Street near Shed 5 of the Eastern Market in the City of
Detroit, State of Michigan.” It continued: “On June 6, 2022, at approximately 12:30 p.m.,
Nancy Seguna was walking across Alfred Street near Shed 5, when suddenly and without
warning she was caused to fall due to uneven cement/roadway.” The notice also identified
three witnesses.
Upon receiving the notice, defendant requested color photographs of the exact
location. Plaintiff replied a few months later with photographs of the road. However,

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plaintiff also stated that “upon information and belief, repairs of the hazard were made
between the time of Ms. Seguna’s fall and the taking of photographs.” The photographs
were of two different locations on the road and did not show a defect.
Defendant moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(7), (8), and (10),
arguing that plaintiff failed to sufficiently describe the location and identify the nature of
the defect and consequently failed to provide sufficient notice under MCL 691.1404(1).
Plaintiff responded that her description of the location was not vague, given that locations
in Eastern Market are known by shed numbers rather than street addresses, that Alfred
Street is only 469.2 feet total—450 feet of which is across from Shed 5—and that it would
take less than two minutes to walk the area she described. The trial court denied
defendant’s motion for summary disposition, concluding that “[t]here was sufficient
information provided concerning the defect. The shed number was provided. The street
Alred, A-1-r-e-d [sic], between Russell and Riopelle. This is in the Eastern Market District
which are identified by sheds.”
Defendant appealed. In a split, unpublished decision, the Court of Appeals reversed
and remanded on the grounds that the trial court erred by denying defendant’s motion for
summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(7). Seguna v Detroit, unpublished per curiam
opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued January 29, 2026 (Docket No. 371007). The
majority held that the 469.2-foot range in plaintiff’s notice was “insufficiently narrow to
constitute ‘the exact location’ for the purposes of MCL 691.1404(1).” Id. at 6. The panel
explained, “[T]he notice did not include any other details that would directly aid with
identifying the location of the alleged defect, such as referencing a particular side of the
road, cardinal direction, or other landmark such as a streetlight.” Id. at 7. Additionally,
the panel explained that the defect description was insufficient because it failed to specify
whether the defect “was a pothole, an inclined part of the highway, a bump or gap, a divot,
or any other non-parallel aspect of the highway that might fairly be considered ‘uneven.’ ”
Id. The court declined to consider the photographs because plaintiff provided them after
the 120-day window in MCL 691.1404(1) had expired.
Judge MALDONADO dissented. In her view, plaintiff provided timely notice with
sufficient description of the location and nature of the defect: the notice named a single
street, identified a part of that street where a pedestrian would cross, and anchored the
description to a fixed landmark—Shed 5. Judge MALDONADO emphasized that MCL
691.1404(1) does not require GPS coordinates or even a numerical street address; it only
requires sufficient information to identify the area. Further, she argued that the phrase
“uneven cement/roadway” clearly describes a defect. Unlike a generic descriptor such as
“dangerous road,” “uneven cement/roadway” reveals the nature of the danger. Further, it
specifies that the defective section was made of cement (not asphalt or bricks) and on the
roadway (not a sidewalk). Under this reading, Judge MALDONADO concluded, it is hard to
imagine what else plaintiff could have said to be more specific.

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II. LEGAL BACKGROUND
Under MCR 2.116(C)(7), summary disposition is appropriate when “immunity
granted by law” shields the defendant. “Unlike a motion under subsection (C)(10), a
movant under MCR 2.116(C)(7) is not required to file supportive material, and the
opposing party need not reply with supportive material. The contents of the complaint are
accepted as true unless contradicted by documentation submitted by the movant.” Maiden
v Rozwood, 461 Mich 109, 119 (1999). The standard of review on a motion for summary
disposition is de novo. Id. at 118.
Generally, under the governmental tort liability act, MCL 691.1401 et seq., a
governmental agency is immune from tort liability when discharging a governmental
function. However, “the highway exception,” MCL 691.1402, allows a party injured “by
reason of failure . . . to keep a highway . . . in reasonable repair and in a condition
reasonably safe and fit for travel” to sue the appropriate governmental agency. But to bring
suit under this exception, the plaintiff must comply with the 120-day notice provision. This
provision, MCL 691.1404(1), states:
As a condition to any recovery for injuries sustained by reason of any
defective highway, the injured person, within 120 days from the time the
injury occurred, except as otherwise provided in subsection (3) shall serve a
notice on the governmental agency of the occurrence of the injury and the
defect. The notice shall specify the exact location and nature of the defect,
the injury sustained and the names of the witnesses known at the time by the
claimant.
When considering if the notice was sufficient, the court may not use information the
governmental agency received outside of the notice period. Thurman v Pontiac, 295 Mich
App 381, 386 (2012).
“ ‘The principal purposes to be served by requiring notice are simply (1) to provide
the governmental agency with an opportunity to investigate the claim while it is still fresh
and (2) to remedy the defect before other persons are injured.’ ” Madbak v Farmington
Hills, 349 Mich App 561, 569-570 (2024), quoting Plunkett v Dep’t of Transp, 286 Mich
App 168, 176-177 (2009). “ ‘[A] liberal construction of the notice requirements is favored
to avoid penalizing an inexpert layman for some technical defect. . . . The requirement
should not receive so strict a construction as to make it difficult for the average citizen to
draw a good notice.’ ” Id.
III. ANALYSIS
In this case, a lay citizen used lay terms to describe where and how she was injured.

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I, Elizabeth Kingston-Miller, Clerk of the Michigan Supreme Court, certify that the
foregoing is a true and complete copy of the order entered at the direction of the Court.
July 2, 2026
p0630
4
Clerk
First, sheds, not addresses, are the common mode of identifying locations in Eastern
Market. Though the area was 450 feet long, there was no easy way to more clearly
designate a narrower range. So, just as one would tell a friend to “meet at Shed 5” in
Eastern Market, plaintiff used this prominent landmark to anchor her description. Further,
450 feet is less than a tenth of a mile, which typically takes only two minutes to walk.
Second, plaintiff described the nature of the defect as an uneven, cement roadway. As
Judge MALDONADO elaborated, unlike a general “dangerous” descriptor, the term
“uneven” “explains that the roadway was not level or smooth.” Seguna (MALDONADO, J.,
dissenting), unpub op at 2. From plaintiff’s description, a city investigator would know to
look down the relevant 450 feet of Alfred Street across from Shed 5—especially in areas
where pedestrians cross—for an uneven surface that could cause someone to trip.
More generally, I am concerned that the Court of Appeals erred when it imposed a
stricter standard than the statute requires. It is almost always possible to parse further and
require a more minute, technical description of a location or defect. But the point of the
notice statute is not to gatekeep or reduce the number of claims. The point of the notice
statute is to give the governmental agency a reasonable heads-up so that it can examine and
repair the potentially dangerous roadway. Madbak, 349 Mich App at 569-570, quoting
Plunkett, 286 Mich App at 176-177 (2009). Here, as explained above, plaintiff provided
enough information that the city could reasonably investigate the claim. She should not be
penalized for failing to provide GPS coordinates, cardinal directions, or engineering terms.

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