Action for personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits under the No-Fault Act; Causal connection requirement for an injury arising from an assault in a motor vehicle to be compensable; McKenzie v Auto Club Ins Ass’n; Injury sustained while alighting from the vehicle; Kemp v Farm Bureau Gen Ins Co of MI; Failure to comply with a scheduling order as to filing a required response to a summary disposition motion; MCR 2.401(B)(2)(a)(ii); MCR 2.119(E)(3); MCR 2.504(B)(1); MCR 2.116(G)(4); Mootness

The court held that plaintiff’s failure to comply with the scheduling order as to filing a required response to defendant-insurer’s summary disposition motion justified the dismissal of his case. The court also held that he did not have a viable claim for PIP benefits as a matter of law. Thus, it affirmed summary disposition for defendant. The case arose from “an alleged assault committed against plaintiff” after he got into an argument with another person while in his own vehicle. As plaintiff tried to step out of his car, the other person “slammed the door several times into plaintiff’s leg, breaking it in two places.” On appeal, the court first determined that his argument about the disqualification of his attorney (who was also his wife) on the basis she was a necessary witness was moot. It then addressed his due process claim, concluding the trial court did not deprive him “of a hearing; rather, plaintiff failed to comply with the scheduling order regarding the filing of a required response to the summary disposition motion, effectively forfeiting or waiving his opportunity to argue his case at the scheduled hearing. There is nothing in the record suggesting that plaintiff would not have been allowed to present oral argument had he filed a response as was required.” The court noted that the scheduling “order expressly stated that dismissal could result from a compliance failure. And plaintiff’s noncompliance did not merely entail an untimely response to the summary disposition motion. Rather, plaintiff did not file any response at all. Aside from the violation of the scheduling order, MCR 2.116(G)(4)” also justified dismissal of his case for failing to counter the (C)(10) motion. Finally, the court found that summary disposition was appropriate on a substantive basis. The “assault and resulting injury just happened to occur when plaintiff was attempting to alight from the vehicle. Taken to its logical extreme, a person shot while alighting from a vehicle could recover PIP benefits under a ruling in plaintiff’s favor—this is not the law.” Further, the other person involved in the altercation “wielded the car door as a weapon in injuring plaintiff. Therefore, the injury was not closely related to the transportational function of the motor vehicle, which is necessary to support an award of PIP benefits.”