The No-Fault Act (NFA); Directed verdict; One-year-back rule; MCL 500.3145; A healthcare provider’s standing to pursue PIP benefits for attendant care services; Great weight of the evidence; Attorney fees & costs under MCR 2.405 & MCL 500.3148; Declining to award attorney fees under MCR 2.405 in the interest of justice

In these consolidated appeals arising from a third-party action under the NFA, the court reversed the trial court’s denial of a directed verdict on the issue of plaintiff-AdvisaCare’s standing to pursue PIP benefits for attendant care services provided to an individual (Carol) injured in a motor vehicle accident, vacated the award of attorney fees under MCL 500.3148, and remanded but affirmed in all other respects. AdvisaCare also sought PIP benefits for attendant care services provided to a second person, Sandra. As to the denial of its motion for a directed verdict, defendant-Home-Owners first argued “the relation-back doctrine did not apply to” its 5/3/19 substitution for defendant-Auto-Owners and thus, “AdvisaCare could not recover PIP benefits for attendant care services rendered before” 5/3/18, with the result that its “entire recovery was barred by the one-year-back rule.” The court found that Home-Owners was “correct that its substitution for Auto-Owners did not relate back to [5/11/18], the date that AdvisaCare filed its complaint against Auto-Owners.” The court held that “the substitution of Home-Owners added a ‘wholly new and different party’ to the case, and the relation-back doctrine did not apply.” But it concluded “the fact that the relation-back doctrine did not apply was not dispositive.” The court determined that “the pertinent point of reference for application of the one-year-back rule was not Home-Owners’ substitution for Auto-Owners, but was instead the date of the assignment to Home-Owners.” Thus, it held that “the trial court did not err by rejecting Home-Owners’ argument that the one-year-back rule completely barred AdvisaCare’s recovery and denying Home-Owners’ motion for a directed verdict on this ground.” Home-Owners next argued that its motion for a directed verdict should have been granted “on the basis of AdvisaCare’s lack of standing.” Given that the record showed that it “acknowledged Sandra’s assignment and abandoned its challenge to the assignment’s validity, the trial court did not err by not directing a verdict in favor of Home-Owners on AdvisaCare’s claim for PIP benefits due for services rendered to Sandra.” As to Carol, Home-Owners claimed “there was no record evidence of an assignment executed by Carol at the time of trial and that it had raised the absence of an assignment for Carol in its affirmative defenses.” Home-Owners was correct. “AdvisaCare did not attach Carol’s assignment to its complaint, did not elicit testimony establishing that Carol had executed an assignment, and did not offer the assignment into evidence before or during trial. When the trial court ruled on Home-Owners’ motion for a directed verdict, there was no record evidence of the assignment that would have provided AdvisaCare with standing to maintain a direct cause of action for PIP benefits for services rendered to Carol.”