Action by a healthcare provider seeking personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits; MCL 500.3112; Whether a healthcare provider may pursue a reimbursement claim against an insurer where it transferred its interests in the debt to factoring companies before filing suit; Statutory standing; Miller v Allstate Ins Co; Real party in interest; MCR 2.201(B)(1); Hofmann v Auto Club Ins Ass’n; Necessary joinder; MCR 2.205(A); DeLong v Marston; Effect of shifting assignments; Comparing Cannon Twp v Rockford Pub Schs, Hess v Eddy (11th Cir), & DeVries v Weinstein Int’l Corp (D MN); FedRCivP 17; Purpose of the court rules; MCR 1.105

Holding that the counter-assignments and purchase agreement amendments at issue permitted plaintiff-healthcare provider to maintain its causes of action against defendant-insurer, the court reversed the trial court’s contrary judgment and remanded. Plaintiff sought PIP benefits for services it provided to defendant’s insureds after their auto accident. Before filing suit, plaintiff entered into assignment agreements with several factoring companies. After the suit was filed, those companies signed counter-assignments and purchase agreement amendments, reinvesting plaintiff with the right to bring suits for payment of outstanding balances. The trial court granted summary disposition for defendant finding plaintiff lacked standing when the complaints were filed. On appeal, the court held that standing “is not a barrier to [plaintiff’s] case because MCL 500.3112 grants [it] the right to ‘assert a direct cause of action against an insurer . . . to recover overdue benefits payable for charges for products, services, or accommodations provided to an injured person.’” The real-party-in-interest rule also did not preclude its suit. Plaintiff “is authorized by statute to bring a first-party no-fault claim, and the plain language of the court rule permits it to do so despite that the action was brought for the benefit of the factoring companies, or for the joint benefit of” plaintiff and those companies. Plaintiff “is ‘vested with the right of action’ against [defendant] based on the assignments from the [insureds], and is ‘authorized by statute’ to sue in its own name under the plain language of MCL 500.3112. That the ‘beneficial interest’ resided with the factoring companies did not eliminate” plaintiff as a real party in interest. Further, “when the factoring contracts surfaced, [plaintiff] and its factoring creditors voluntarily entered into counter-assignments and purchase agreement amendments transferring the ‘beneficial interest’ in the” insureds’ no-fault claims back to plaintiff. “Those contracts eliminated any risk that [defendant] would pay twice for the same benefit claims.” The court found Cannon Twp controlling and noted that its “approach to the shifting assignments in this case also tracks that of the federal courts applying FR Civ P 17, which uses precisely the same language as MCR 2.201(B).” Finally, the court noted that defendant’s insistence that plaintiff’s “failure to obtain the counter-assignments before filing suit dooms its claims not only affords [it] a potential windfall, but contravenes our court rules’ animating spirit.” Practically speaking, plaintiff “was a real party in interest without the counter-assignments, and eliminated any risk of double recovery by entering into them.”