In answering a certified question from the Fourteenth District Court of Appeals of Texas, the Michigan Supreme Court considered whether a defendant property owner had a legal duty to protect a third party non-employee who had never been on or near its property from exposure to asbestos fibers carried home on a household member's clothing.

In Miller v. Ford Motor Co., the Court determined that the relationship between Carolyn Miller and Ford Motor Co. was "highly tenuous", such that it did not warrant the imposition of that duty. The Plaintiffs had alleged that Miller, who died from mesothelioma in 2000, contracted the disease from washing the work clothes of her stepfather Cleveland "John" Roland. From 1954-1965 Roland was an employee of independent contractors who were hired by the defendant Ford Motor Co. to reline the interiors of blast furnaces used to melt iron ore at the Ford Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The materials used to reline the furnaces were alleged to have contained asbestos. Miller herself had never been on or near the defendant's property or had any further relationship with the defendant.

Citing the insubstantial nature of the relationship between Miller and the defendant, the Court found the harm to plaintiff "unforeseeable" and further concluded that to impose a duty on the defendant to protect "every person with whom a business' employees and the employees of its independent contractors come into contact, or even with whom their clothes come into contact, would impose an extraordinarily onerous and unworkable burden" and "create a limitless pool of plaintiffs." Having concluded that defendant owed no legal duty to Miller to protect her from "take-home" asbestos fibers on her stepfather's clothing, the matter was returned to the Texas court for further proceedings.

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