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Regan v. Washtenaw County Board of County Road Commissioners6/10/2003
to hose down the dust and debris stirred up by the tractor . . . ." Plaintiff Zelanko alleged that defendant negligently entrusted the operation of the tractor mower to its employee because the employee "was incompetent or unqualified to operate the tractor and attached lawnmower." Defendant's employee was allegedly incompetent and unqualified to operate the tractor mower because he "failed to avoid driving [the lawnmower] over piece of rubber and/or other debris" in the grass that he was mowing.
These challenged functions are not directly related to the operation of the vehicles as motor vehicles. Rather, the challenged functions relate to the operation of the maintenance attachments to the vehicles. In other words, if the maintenance functions had been performed differently, by using a water truck to keep dust down in the case of the broom tractor, or by clearing debris from the mowing area before mowing in the case of the tractor mower, the claimed negligence might have been avoided. Neither the alleged negligent operation of the vehicles nor these potential corrective measures have anything at all to do with the operation of the vehicles at issue as motor vehicles. I conclude, therefore, that in neither case did the plaintiff's injury arise out of the operation of a motor vehicle as a motor vehicle, and that governmental immunity is not avoided under the motor vehicle exception found in ยง 1405.
For the above reasons, and in light of the Supreme Court's holdings in Stanton, supra, and Chandler, supra, I would hold that plaintiffs' claims do not satisfy the requirements of the motor vehicle exception to governmental immunity, and that the trial court erred when it denied defendant's motions for summary disposition.
Kurtis T. Wilder
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