In Michigan, government employees and agencies are generally immune to lawsuits of personal injury or property damage caused while performing in their official roles, as long as they were acting in the scope of their authority as a governmental employee. This immunity is nearly universal, but holds an exception if the employee was found to have been acting with “gross negligence”. Gross negligence is a heightened standard of negligence that signals a complete lack of care to avoid harming others and a clear indifference to the consequences of their actions. In Michigan, determining if a person is liable for gross negligence is a two-step process. First, their actions must show a clear disregard for the potential harm they could cause. Second, individuals seeking justice must prove that the conduct was the primary cause of their injury, rather than a contributing cause. Achieving both of these standards is very difficult, so those who can only be held liable for gross negligence often face no consequences. Gross negligence is necessary to most claims against the government and its employees, as gross negligence serves as the limit to their immunity to civil suits. The heightened standard of gross negligence leaves those seeking justice against the government without a path to compensation.

Michigan’s strict interpretation of gross negligence can block many people from finding compensation for the carelessness of government employees and agencies. Simply proving that a governmental employee was negligent is not enough to hold them liable. The process needed to find that the employee was acting with gross negligence and was the direct cause of harm requires heavy investigation and legal interpretation of the employee’s actions and intentions. This serves as protection for governmental employees, whose attorneys can argue that the employee's actions were not gross negligence or that the injury was caused by a different factor. Governmental employees have a free pass to act however they please and avoid any accountability, even for mistakes or actions with serious consequences.

A government is meant to represent the interests of the people, but the people cannot trust the government if the people cannot hold their government accountable when it acts against their interests. We must raise awareness of the unrealistic standards of immunity that government employees and agencies hold through the gross negligence standard, and work to make sure Michiganders can properly hold their government accountable.