COA 376473 ABBEY POSTLEWAIT V STORAGE GROUP LLC Opinion - Per Curiam - Unpublished 8/11/2026

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.
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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N
C O U R T O F A P P E A L S
ABBEY POSTLEWAIT,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
UNPUBLISHED
August 11, 2026
9:29 AM
v No. 376473
Muskegon Circuit Court
STORAGE GROUP LLC, LC No. 2024-000732-NO
Defendant-Appellee.
Before: BOONSTRA, P.J., and YOUNG and KOROBKIN, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Plaintiff appeals by right the trial court’s order granting defendant’s motion for summary
disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10) (no genuine issue of material fact). We affirm.
I. PERTINENT FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Defendant owns a storage facility on the corner of East Pontaluna Road and North Third
Avenue in Fruitport Charter Township. The property’s previous owners installed and maintained
a chain-link fence around the perimeter of the property. Defendant bought the property in 2006
and never made any modifications to the fence. The public sidewalks adjoining defendant’s
property narrow significantly at the corner of defendant’s lot, such that they more closely border
the fence at the corner than elsewhere.
On July 20, 2021, plaintiff was riding her bicycle on the sidewalk on the west side of North
Third Avenue. She attempted a left turn around the narrowed sidewalk onto East Pontaluna Road,
but her bicycle handlebars clipped the fence at the corner of defendant’s lot. This caused her to
lose control of the bicycle, and she fell and sustained injuries requiring medical treatment.
In February 2024, plaintiff filed a premises-liability claim against defendant, alleging that
it had negligently maintained a fence on its property in a way that rendered the sidewalk
“unreasonably and unlawfully narrow.” She engaged the services of an inspection consultant, who
provided a report (as well as an affidavit indicating that he would testify consistently with the
report), noting that the sidewalk narrowed “from 102” wide on Pontaluna, to 21” wide at the
corner, and up to 60” again along 3rd Avenue.” He opined that the narrowing of the sidewalk

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violated several statutes, ordinances, and building codes, explaining that “[w]hen the Village [of
Fruitport] in collaboration with MDOT, the Michigan Department of Transportation demolished
and replaced the sidewalks and curb cuts in 2020 at this intersection, they needed to comply with
all of the . . . ordinances.”
Defendant filed a motion for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10). The trial
court granted the motion on the basis that the evidence did not establish that defendant owed a
duty to plaintiff. This appeal followed.
II. SUMMARY DISPOSITION
Plaintiff argues that the trial court erred when it granted defendant’s motion for summary
disposition. We disagree.
A. STANDARD OF REVIEW
“We review de novo a trial court’s decision on a motion for summary disposition.” Kandil-
Elsayed v F & E Oil, Inc, 512 Mich 95, 109; 1 NW3d 44 (2023) (quotation marks and citation
omitted). “A motion under MCR 2.116(C)(10) tests the factual sufficiency of a complaint. A trial
court considers affidavits, pleadings, depositions, and other evidence submitted by the parties, in
the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion.” Id. (quotation marks and citation
omitted). “Only where the proffered evidence fails to establish a genuine issue regarding any
material fact is the moving party entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Id. (quotation marks
and citation omitted).
B. PREMISES LIABILITY
“In a premises-liability action, as in any negligence action, the plaintiff must establish the
elements of negligence: (1) the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty, (2) the defendant breached that
duty, (3) the breach proximately caused the plaintiff’s injuries, and (4) the plaintiff suffered
damages.” Jeffrey-Moise v Williamsburg Towne Houses Cooperative, Inc, 336 Mich App 616,
626; 971 NW2d 716 (2021). “In the context of premises liability, a landowner’s duty to a visitor
depends on that visitor’s status” as a trespasser, licensee, or invitee. Kandil-Elsayed, 512 Mich
at 111 (quotation marks and citation omitted). Plaintiff’s complaint alleges that as “a licensee on
public property,” defendant owed her “the duty to maintain the premises in a safe, prudent, and
reasonable manner.” This assertion is incorrect as a matter of law. “A ‘licensee’ is a person who
is privileged to enter the land of another by virtue of the possessor’s consent.” Stitt v Holland
Abundant Life Fellowship, 462 Mich 591, 596; 614 NW2d 88 (2000). A landowner has a duty to
warn a licensee of any hidden dangers but “owes no duty of inspection or affirmative care to make
the premises safe for the licensee’s visit.” Id. at 597. But defendant did not own or possess the
public sidewalk adjoining its property, so the premises-liability theory of negligence simply does
not apply to plaintiff’s claim against defendant.1
1 Even if we considered plaintiff to have entered defendant’s property at the moment that her
bicycle handlebars clipped defendant’s fence, she would be a trespasser because her interference

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Ordinarily, “there is no duty, absent a statute, of an abutting owner as to the condition of
the sidewalk or public way, unless the landowner has physically intruded upon the area in some
manner or has done some act which either increased the existent hazard or created a new hazard.”
Berman v LaRose, 16 Mich App 55, 57; 167 NW2d 471 (1969). See also Parsons v EI Du Point
De Nemours Powder Co, 198 Mich 409, 414; 164 NW 412 (1917) (defendant’s factory melted a
hole in a frozen public river); Grimes v King, 311 Mich 399, 411; 18 NW 870 (1945) (defendant’s
poorly constructed wall fell into a public street). There is no dispute that the fence did not
physically intrude upon the sidewalk. Plaintiff also does not challenge defendant’s assertion that
it never modified the fence after purchasing the property in 2006. And according to plaintiff’s
own consultant, it was the Village of Fruitport and MDOT, not defendant, that created the alleged
hazard by improperly replacing the sidewalks and curb cuts in 2020. Defendant’s fence existed in
the same location both before and after the sidewalk was rebuilt, so defendant did nothing to
increase any alleged hazard created by the narrowing of the sidewalk.2
Plaintiff argues that defendant created a new hazard by covering the fence with large
political signs, which created a “blind corner” that prevented plaintiff from “seeing, appreciating,
and guarding against” potential obstacles or hazards as she rounded the corner. Plaintiff testified
that her view was partially obstructed by political signs, but she also explained that she observed
two vehicles stopped at the intersection on East Pontaluna Road. In other words, she was still able
to see and appreciate those hazards around the corner. Even assuming arguendo that defendant
breached a duty by covering the fence with large signs in violation of a local ordinance,3 there was
no genuine issue of material fact that the obstructed view did not cause plaintiff’s injuries. During
the hearing on defendant’s motion, plaintiff’s counsel agreed that the handlebars on a typical
bicycle are “probably wider” than the sidewalk at its narrowest point, and that plaintiff would have
crashed her bicycle in the same way regardless of whether there were signs on the fence. He
with the fence was outside the scope of defendant’s consent for members of the public to enter its
land for the purpose of using the storage facility’s services. “A ‘trespasser’ is a person who enters
upon another’s land, without the landowner’s consent. The landowner owes no duty to the
trespasser except to refrain from injuring [her] by ‘wilful and wanton’ misconduct.” Stitt, 462
Mich at 596. Plaintiff does not allege, and the evidence does not support, that maintaining the
fence was wilful and wanton misconduct.
2 Plaintiff claims that her consultant opined that the fence violated several statutes, building codes,
and ordinances, but it is clear from the consultant’s affidavit and report that it was the sidewalk
that the consultant believed was constructed in violation of the statutes and building codes. In any
event, the “[v]iolation of an ordinance is not negligence per se, but only evidence of negligence.
If no duty is owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, an ordinance violation committed by the
defendant is not actionable as negligence.” Stevens v Drekich, 178 Mich App 273, 278; 443 NW2d
401 (1989). This means that even if defendant’s fence did not comply with local ordinances,
plaintiff still had to show that defendant owed her a duty, which she has failed to do.
3 Fruitport has a zoning ordinance that prohibits landowners from maintaining a “wall, fence or
yard enclosure” over six feet tall unless it is “an open type fence that does not reduce visibility at
right angles to any surface of such fence by more than 20 percent.” Fruitport Charter Township
Ordinance 781, § 42-577.

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guessed that she might have been able to see “further ahead” and more fully appreciated how
narrow the sidewalk was, but he also admitted that “it’s hard to say what she would have seen
around the corner had those signs not been there.” But these arguments were merely speculative,
and none of the evidence presented to the trial court suggested that the signage on the fence caused
or contributed to plaintiff’s injuries.
Because defendant did not owe plaintiff a duty to warn or protect her against the hazardous
conditions on the public sidewalk and because the signage on the fence did not cause plaintiff’s
injuries, there was no genuine issue of material fact and defendant was entitled to judgment as a
matter of law. Accordingly, the trial court did not err when it granted defendant’s motion for
summary disposition on plaintiff’s premises-liability claim.4
Affirmed.
/s/ Mark T. Boonstra
/s/ Adrienne N. Young
/s/ Daniel S. Korobkin
4 Plaintiff does not challenge the trial court’s order to the extent that it granted summary disposition
on plaintiff’s nuisance claims, so those claims are not at issue on appeal.

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