One month after the Michigan Supreme Court handed down Bowerman v. Red Oak Management Co. on July 20, 2026, property managers, general contractors, and their insurers are still absorbing the full weight of what just changed. The ruling — which held a contractor liable for a trench left open in a parking lot common area even though the injured plaintiff had known about the hazard for 14 days — upends one of the most frequently used defense strategies in Michigan slip and fall litigation. This is not a narrow procedural tweak. It is a structural shift in how contractor liability slip and fall trench parking lot common area cases will be evaluated from the trial court level upward, and it arrives at precisely the moment a parallel $8.9 million Florida verdict is sending shockwaves through the national commercial general liability insurance market.
What Bowerman v. Red Oak Management Co. Actually Decided
The facts of Bowerman are deceptively simple. Westveld Services, a contractor engaged by Red Oak Management Co., excavated a trench in a shared parking lot to perform utility work. The trench was left open and unguarded. The plaintiff — a tenant of the managed property — had walked past the trench, noted its location, and actively avoided it on multiple occasions over a 14-day period before ultimately sustaining serious injuries when she stepped into it in low-light conditions. Defense counsel moved for summary judgment on two grounds: first, that the plaintiff’s prior knowledge of the hazard defeated any claim of negligence; second, that Westveld, as a contractor rather than a possessor of the property, owed no duty under premises liability doctrine.
The Michigan Supreme Court rejected both arguments. Writing at 27 Mich. at 107, the Court held that comparative fault is a matter of policy — not a threshold gatekeeping mechanism — and that a plaintiff’s awareness of a hazard does not extinguish a contractor’s common-law duty to refrain from unreasonably endangering others. Critically, the Court classified the claim as sounding in ordinary negligence, not premises liability, relying on the retroactive framework established in Kandil-Elsayed (2023). That distinction matters enormously: under ordinary negligence, the plaintiff’s knowledge of the hazard becomes a comparative fault question for the jury, not a basis for pre-trial dismissal.
The ‘Possession and Control’ Defense Is No Longer a Safe Harbor
For years, contractors working in shared or common areas operated with a relatively comfortable legal buffer. The traditional premises liability framework required a plaintiff to establish that the defendant was in possession and control of the property where the injury occurred. Because contractors typically do not hold title or long-term control over parking lots and common areas, they could argue — often successfully at the summary judgment stage — that they owed no premises-based duty to injured third parties. Bowerman closes that escape route in Michigan for situations involving contractor liability slip and fall trench parking lot common area hazards that the contractor itself created.
The Court’s reasoning is grounded in basic tort law: when a party actively creates a dangerous condition and then abandons it in a space used by foreseeable third parties, the claim is not about possession of land. It is about the independent common-law obligation not to leave unreasonable hazards in the path of people who will encounter them. Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute explains this distinction between active negligence and passive premises conditions, and it is exactly this line the Michigan Supreme Court drew in Bowerman. Property managers and contractors who assumed that summary judgment was a near-automatic outcome in “plaintiff-knew-about-it” cases now face a fundamentally different litigation landscape.
MCL 554.139 and the Fitness-for-Use Standard: Intended Users Matter
The Bowerman decision also touches on MCL 554.139(1)(a), Michigan’s statutory duty requiring landlords and related parties to keep rental premises fit for their intended use. Prior interpretations of this standard applied a relatively abstract definition of fitness. The Court in Bowerman anchored the fitness-for-use analysis to the actual intended users of the space — which in the context of managed residential and mixed-use properties often means elderly tenants, residents with mobility impairments, and disabled individuals navigating shared parking lots and walkways.
This is significant for property managers because it means the adequacy of hazard warnings, barrier systems, and contractor oversight protocols will now be evaluated against the most vulnerable foreseeable user, not a hypothetical average adult in ideal conditions. A small orange cone placed at the edge of an open trench may have been sufficient to satisfy prior judicial interpretations. Under the Bowerman framework, that same cone will now face jury scrutiny as to whether it was reasonably adequate for the elderly or disabled tenants who regularly used that parking lot. If you are evaluating damages from a fall like this, a personal injury settlement calculator can help you understand the range of compensation that may apply based on injury severity and liability factors.
The $8.9 Million Florida Verdict: A National Benchmark for ‘Created Hazard’ Cases
Michigan is not operating in a vacuum. Decided earlier in 2026, a Florida jury returned a verdict of $8,928,701 in favor of an Amazon delivery driver who sustained a fracture-dislocation ankle injury after stepping into a pothole on a commercial property. The driver developed complex regional pain syndrome, required a spinal cord stimulator, and was found to be permanently disabled. The verdict — which runs across the case record at 31-1 through 31-4 — is now being cited in plaintiff briefs nationwide as a benchmark for serious lower-extremity injuries caused by unaddressed surface hazards in parking lots and loading areas.
What makes the Florida verdict particularly resonant alongside Bowerman is the shared factual thread: in both cases, the hazardous condition in a commercial common area was known or knowable, was not adequately remediated, and caused catastrophic orthopedic injuries to people going about ordinary activities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics documents that slip, trip, and fall events account for a substantial share of disabling occupational injuries annually, reinforcing that these are not freak accidents but predictable outcomes of unmanaged hazards. Insurance carriers writing commercial general liability and contractor GL policies are now recalculating exposure limits and reviewing exclusion language with urgency.
Verdict and Settlement Data: Contractor Liability in Common Area Fall Cases (2026)
| Case / Jurisdiction | Hazard Type | Plaintiff Injury | Outcome | Key Legal Factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bowerman v. Red Oak Mgmt. Co. (Michigan, 2026) | Open trench, parking lot | Serious fall injuries | Summary judgment reversed; liability affirmed | Ordinary negligence, not premises liability; knowledge ≠ defeat of claim |
| Amazon Driver Pothole Case (Florida, 2026) | Pothole, commercial lot | Fracture-dislocation ankle, CRPS, permanent disability | $8,928,701 jury verdict | Created and abandoned hazard; foreseeable user doctrine |
| National Trend (2026, multiple jurisdictions) | Various common area defects | Orthopedic, neurological | Contractors losing ‘possession & control’ defense | Active creation of hazard triggers independent duty |
Discovery Implications: Why ‘Obvious Hazard’ Arguments Will Fail in Michigan Post-Bowerman
For litigators handling contractor liability slip and fall trench parking lot common area cases in Michigan, the discovery phase just became significantly more consequential — on both sides. Before Bowerman, a contractor defending a parking lot trench injury could file for early summary disposition and reasonably expect the court to find that an open, visible trench constituted an “open and obvious” hazard that defeated the plaintiff’s claim as a matter of law. That motion practice pathway is now substantially narrowed.
Under the Kandil-Elsayed retroactive framework applied in Bowerman, the obviousness of a hazard goes to comparative fault — a jury question — rather than to the existence of a duty — a legal question the court decides. This means defendants must now engage in full merits discovery. Contractors will face deposition questions about their hazard mitigation protocols, the adequacy of any barriers or signage erected around the trench, internal communications about the timeline for completing work, and whether the contractor had any awareness that elderly or disabled individuals used the affected parking area. Plaintiffs’ attorneys should be targeting work orders, subcontractor agreements, and any inspection reports generated during the period the trench was open. For falls that result in traumatic brain injuries from impact with pavement, a brain injury calculator can help assess the long-term value of cognitive and neurological damage claims.
What Property Managers and Contractors Must Do Right Now
The month following the Bowerman ruling is an operational inflection point. Property managers who routinely delegate hazard monitoring to contractors and then step back are now exposed to co-defendant liability in ordinary negligence alongside those contractors. The Court’s reasoning makes clear that when a contractor creates a condition — an open trench, an excavated walkway, a displaced surface in a shared parking area — in a location used by foreseeable third parties, both the contractor and any party with supervisory authority over that work can face liability that cannot be extinguished at the pleading or summary judgment stage.
Practical steps that property managers and contractors should implement immediately include: mandatory daily inspection logs for any open excavation in common areas; formal written protocols establishing when temporary barriers must be upgraded from cones to physical fencing; clear contractual allocation of the duty to notify residents and tenants of ongoing hazards; and explicit insurance endorsements addressing created-hazard exposure. The Insurance Information Institute provides background on how commercial general liability policies are structured, and policyholders should be working with their brokers now to confirm that contractor-created hazard exposure in common areas is not excluded under their current CGL language. For workers injured during construction-adjacent activities, the workplace injury calculator can help estimate compensation for lost wages and long-term disability.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a plaintiff’s prior knowledge of a trench or hazard automatically defeat a contractor liability claim in Michigan after Bowerman?
No. The Michigan Supreme Court’s July 20, 2026 ruling in Bowerman v. Red Oak Management Co. held that a plaintiff’s prior knowledge of a hazard — even 14 days of awareness — does not defeat a negligence claim as a matter of law. Under the Kandil-Elsayed retroactive framework, the plaintiff’s knowledge becomes a comparative fault question for the jury, not a threshold barrier to recovery. Contractors who created and abandoned the hazard in a common area remain exposed to liability for breach of their independent common-law duty to refrain from unreasonably endangering others.
What is the difference between ordinary negligence and premises liability in a contractor slip and fall case, and why does it matter?
Premises liability applies to parties who possess and control land, and it historically allowed defendants to use the “open and obvious” doctrine to obtain early dismissal of slip and fall claims. Ordinary negligence, by contrast, focuses on the conduct of the defendant — specifically, whether they acted unreasonably in creating or failing to remediate a hazard. In contractor liability slip and fall trench parking lot common area cases, classifying the claim as ordinary negligence means the contractor’s independent duty of care applies regardless of whether they controlled the property. After Bowerman, Michigan courts apply this distinction retroactively per Kandil-Elsayed (2023), making it much harder for contractors to win at the summary judgment stage.
Can a contractor be held liable for a trench injury in a parking lot even if the property owner — not the contractor — managed the space?
Yes, under the reasoning of Bowerman v. Red Oak Management Co. The Michigan Supreme Court held that the possession and control doctrine does not insulate a contractor from liability when the contractor itself created the dangerous condition. The contractor’s liability flows from its active creation of the hazard and its obligation under ordinary negligence principles not to leave unreasonable dangers in areas used by foreseeable third parties — not from any right to control or possess the parking lot as real property.
How does the $8.9 million Florida verdict affect contractor liability cases outside Florida?
While the Florida verdict is not binding precedent in other states, it functions as a powerful damages benchmark in plaintiff briefs and mediation arguments nationwide. The $8,928,701 award involved a parking lot pothole — a surface hazard analogous to an open trench — and resulted in a fracture-dislocation ankle injury that progressed to complex regional pain syndrome and permanent disability requiring a spinal cord stimulator. Plaintiff attorneys in Michigan and other states are using this verdict to argue against low-ball settlement offers in serious lower-extremity injury cases arising from contractor liability slip and fall trench parking lot common area conditions, and insurance carriers are recalibrating reserve calculations accordingly.
What should a person injured by a contractor-created hazard in a parking lot do to protect their legal claim?
Anyone injured by a trench, excavation, pothole, or other contractor-created hazard in a parking lot or common area should take several immediate steps: document the scene with photographs or video before any remediation occurs; obtain the names of any witnesses; report the injury to the property manager in writing; seek prompt medical attention and follow all treatment recommendations; and preserve any footwear worn at the time of the incident. It is also important to identify whether a contractor was responsible for creating the hazard, as Bowerman confirms that contractor liability can exist independently of premises liability — meaning multiple parties may share responsibility for the injuries sustained.
This article is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice; readers should consult a licensed attorney in their jurisdiction regarding the specific facts of their situation.
Related reading: When Rideshare Drivers Are Attacked: How Worker Classification Determines If Your Injury Is Covered (Lyft $66K Sanction Case, August 2026)
Sarah Anderson is a Premises Liability Specialist with extensive knowledge of personal injury law and settlement values across the United States. With years of experience analyzing slip and fall injuries only cases, Sarah helps injury victims understand their legal rights and the potential value of their claims. Sarah is not an attorney and the information provided is for educational purposes only.