Automobile accidents involving government-owned motor vehicles can raise issues of governmental immunity, as well as the application of Michigan’s No-Fault Insurance Act. The government, and governmental employees, are often “immune” from suit in many situations. There are exceptions to “governmental immunity” however. For example, MCL 600.6475 provides an exception to governmental immunity that allows an injured person to recover damages “resulting from the negligent operation” of a government motor vehicle by “an officer, agent, or employee.” Many complicated issues can arise in the analysis of a particular case involving the interplay between governmental immunity law and statutory provisions, Michigan common law, and the Michigan No-Fault Insurance Act.

In a recent case the court of appeals addressed whether certain personal injury damages arose out of the negligent “operation” of a motor vehicle by a government employee, where a wiring anti-theft device fell out of an MDOT pickup truck and rolled down a hill into a roadway below, causing a collision with and injuries to a citizen driving down the roadway. The court of appeals reasoned that because the MDOT employee had stopped the pickup truck and turned off the engine, exited the cab of the truck, moved to the tailgate, and climbed into the bed of the truck to begin unloading the anti-theft devices that the fall of the anti-theft device out of the pickup truck, down the hill, into the roadway did not arise out of the “negligent operation” of the motor vehicle. The court appeared to acknowledge that if the anti-theft device had fallen out of the MDOT vehicle as it was driving down the roadway, it might trigger a finding that the accident arose out of the negligent “operation” of a government vehicle, but under these circumstances where the vehicle was stopped and the engine off, the court felt that the accident was too far removed from the actual “operation” of the MDOT pickup truck. The case is Kipton v DOT, unpublished Michigan Court of Appeals case # 329747, decided December 20, 2016.

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