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On May 21, 1996, plaintiff Chandler and several other persons, who were performing community service under a district court order, were assigned to clean Muskegon Area Transit System (MATS) buses and trolleys at a MATS bus barn. Frederick Smith, a Muskegon County employee, was supervising the workers’ cleaning of the interiors of the vehicles. Smith drove one of the buses into the barn, turned off the engine, and started to exit through the open bus doors. As he was doing so, however, the bus doors closed on his neck, apparently because he had neglected to release the hydraulic air pressure valve.
The plaintiff had been waiting to clean the bus when he saw the incident. He attempted to pry open the doors and to hold them until someone came to reach through the bus window and release the air valve. Plaintiff injured his shoulder in the process and brought this action against the county.
Defendant moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(7) and (10), asserting that there was no genuine issue regarding any material fact and that the claim was barred by governmental immunity under MCL 691.1407(1).1 It contended that the case was not within the motor vehicle exception to governmental immunity of MCL 619.14052 because the bus was not in motion and not being used to transport passengers at the time of plaintiff’s injury. Thus, the injury did not arise out of “operation” of the bus.
The circuit court granted defendant’s motion for summary disposition, concluding:
[The] activity of cleaning seats in the bus does not constitute the “operation” of the bus. The bus was not being used or employed to clean anything. The bus was not being used or employed as an instrument to produce any desired work, nor was it being used or employed to produce any desired effect of cleanliness.
The circuit court also said that the cleaning of the bus was a form of maintenance and that the governmental immunity statute refers only to negligent “operation,” not to negligent “operation or maintenance.” Plaintiff appealed.
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The Court of Appeals reversed.3 The Court discussed a number of cases from Michigan4 and elsewhere5 and extracted the principle that a vehicle is in operation “as long as it is being used or employed in some specific function or to produce some desired work or effect.” The Court found the facts of this case to come within this exception, explaining:
Here, bus 440 was being used in a specific function or to produce some desired effect when Smith operated the hydraulic doors as a means of egress, and in anticipation of the workers entering the bus. Surely, if a bus driver driving a regular county route failed to release the air pressure and an exiting passenger was caught in the doors and injured as a result, as in Sonnenberg, supra, there would be no question regarding the application of the motor vehicle exception. The negligent operation of the hydraulic doors would satisfy the statutory condition that the plaintiff suffer “bodily injury . . . resulting from the negligent operation by any . . . employee of the governmental agency, of a motor vehicle.” MCL 691.1405.
Defendant’s argument that because the bus was purchased to transport passengers but had been parked for cleaning at the time of the incident, it was not in a state of being at work, or in the active exercise of some function, or employed to produce some desired work or effect, must fail. The statute does not require that the motor vehicle be involved in any particular activity, only that the injury result from the negligent operation of the motor vehicle. Thus, we fail to see why the exception, which would otherwise be applicable to a door-closing injury, should become inapplicable simply because the bus was not on an established route. Also irrelevant is the fact the ultimate object was to clean the bus. The doors of the bus were still being operated for the purpose of exiting the bus (the desired work or effect), an integral part of the use of the bus. Similarly, had Smith backed bus 440 into plaintiff, causing him injury, presumably all would agree that the exception would still be applicable, although the bus had been removed from its regular route to be cleaned. An employee’s negligent operation would still be involved.
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