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STATE OF MICHIGAN COURT OF APPEALS

ABBEY STROZIER, as Next Friend of ALEXUS STROZIER, a Minor, Plaintiff-Appellee, v FLINT COMMUNITY SCHOOLS and MIDDLE CITIES RISK MANAGEMENT TRUST, Defendants-Appellees, and GALLAGHER BASSETT SERVICES, Defendant, and CITY OF FLINT DEPARTMENT OF SANITATION, Defendant-Appellant.

FOR PUBLICATION December 20, 2011 9:00 a.m.

No. 299704 Genesee Circuit Court LC No. 08-088404-NI

Advance Sheets Version

Before: MURPHY, C.J., and JANSEN and OWENS, JJ. PER CURIAM. Defendant-appellant City of Flint Department of Sanitation1 appeals as of right the trial court's order denying its motion for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(7) and (10). We affirm.

1

In this opinion, the term "defendant" will refer only to defendant-appellant City of Flint Department of Sanitation.

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I. FACTS This case arose out of a collision between a school bus and a garbage truck that injured Alexus Strozier,2 a passenger on the school bus. On April 2, 2007, city of Flint sanitation department employee Mathew Dingel and his partner, Aaron Slagg, were collecting garbage on Fleming Road. Dingel drove the garbage truck, making periodic, brief, temporary stops in the right lane to allow Slagg to collect the garbage and deposit it into the back of the garbage truck. As they collected garbage, a school bus approached from behind the left side of the garbage truck and then, according to Dingel, as it passed the truck, merged into the lane in which the garbage truck was sitting. Although he remembered thinking that the bus nearly hit his truck, Dingel initially thought that the bus missed the truck because he did not feel an impact. Dingel and Slagg continued their garbage route. About two hours later, Dingel received a call from his supervisor, who told him that Dingel had been involved in an accident with the bus. Dingel realized that the bus driver had straightened out too quickly after merging, which had caused the rear end of the bus to swing into the truck. Dingel stated that the garbage truck had been running and ready to proceed to the next stop, but was not moving at the time of the collision, and that the bus ran into the truck. Slagg described the events slightly differently. Slagg stated: Well, I was off of the truck when the bus passed by us, okay? I was picking up the trash and he passed by at a pretty -- at an excessive speed. And I was thinking to myself if my kid was riding that bus I would be very upset at how that guy was driving because there was a car coming -- see, Fleming Road is a two lane road. There was a car coming northbound and we were heading southbound so our garbage truck takes up the full lane and he passed between the cars, the bus driver, he cut the guy who was heading northbound off and cut in front of us. And when I stepped back on the truck to go my partner started to take off and he jammed on the brakes, made me slam into the back of the truck, you know, and I got pretty upset, I was yelling at him. And he went like this and there was a bus, he stopped right in front of us. And we stopped. And when the bus took off, I guess, I don't know if there was a collision or not, but I didn't feel any collision on the back of the truck, you know, when I was standing on the back of the truck so . . . [.] The driver of the bus, Renzellus Brown, stated that he felt a bump as he drove past the garbage truck. Brown initially thought that the street had caused the bump he felt, but a student on the bus told him that the bus had been hit. Brown continued to drive for about a block before pulling the bus to the side of the road. He then inspected the bus and saw that it had been damaged in the rear. Brown stated during his deposition that he did not see the collision with the truck and that he did not see the truck move. However, Brown wrote an accident report on the day of the collision in which he stated that the truck "started to take off and clipped" the bus.

2

Because Strozier is a minor, plaintiff brought this action on her daughter's behalf.

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Alexus Strozier also stated that the truck moved forward and hit the bus. Strozier stated: We was -- after we left my stop we went to some more stops. We turned off Pasadena on to -- I can't remember what street it was, but we turned on I think it's Myrtle. If I'm not mistaken it's Myrtle Street on to Leerda and picked up some kids. And then we went down some more -- we was going -- the bus

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