ELR Citation: ELR 20049
No(s). 10549 (Mich. Ct. App. Dec 6, 1972)

Losses from torts which are likely to occur in the ordinary conduct of an enterprise should be a required cost of doing business. Thus, a corporation which mines raw coke and sells screened coke is not as a matter of law immune from vicarious liability for a nuisance created by the intermediate screening process simply because such risk producing work is "farmed out" to a sub-contractor. That the corporation neither owns the land or equipment used in the screening nor exercises control over the process is not determinative of liability. Vicarious liability may be imposed if (1) there is only one process, and that process produces the harm complained of; (2) there are several processes, each of which produces the harm; or (3) there is at least one process which does not produce the harm, but the sub-contractor uses a method which does produce the harm, and this is known by the corporation when it engages the sub-contractor. Reversed and remanded.

Counsel for Appellants
Donnelly W. Hadden
Ripple and Chambers
1720 First Federal Building
Detroit, MI 48226

Counsel for Appellee Hickman-Williams & Co.
David Cooper
Garan, Lucow, Miller, and Lehman
561 East Jefferson Avenue
Detroit, MI 48226

Wilfred A. Steiner Jr.
Dykema, Wheat, Spencer, Goodnow, and Trigg
27th Floor, Penobscot Building
Detroit, MI 48226

Counsel for Appellee Korno
Richard Harvey
Harvey, Kruse, and Weston
2222 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, MI 48201

Edwin Ugorowski
14940 Michigan Avenue
Dearborn, MI 48126

BEFORE: Levin, P.J.; Bronson and Van Valkenburg, JJ.