Court reverses trial judge; grants summary disposition to auto injury case

In a recent Macomb County case, Choucair v. Starkey, et al., the Court of Appeals overturned a trial judge's refusal to grant the defendants summary disposition.  In order to reverse the lower court, the higher court found that "even if the defendant's truck was slightly intruding into the traveled portion" of the I-94 Freeway, there was no evidence that the operator was negligent.

The injured man had argued that the truck was weaving into and out of the freeway in the process of picking up construction cones and that he was not allowed adequate time to avoid the truck, after being crowded by another driver.  The Court ruled that encountering a slow-moving truck intruding onto the freeway is "commonplace and unremarkable," and that the photographs showing the position of the cones did not adequately support the "speculative" claim that the defendant was intruding into the travel lane of the freeway.  The Court relied heavily on the fact that the truck had "safety lights and flashers."