PIP benefits; Ineligibility under MCL 500.3173a(4); “Fraudulent insurance act”; Procedural due process; Motion for reconsideration; MCR 2.119(F)(3); Entry of an amended order granting the motion after initially denying it; Kokx v Bylenga

The court concluded that the trial court did not deprive plaintiff-Washington “of procedural due process by sua sponte entering an amended order granting [defendant-]Farm Bureau’s motion for reconsideration after denying the motion in the first instance.” It also did not err by holding “as a matter of law that Washington knowingly made false statements material to her claim for PIP benefits, thereby rendering her ineligible for such benefits under MCL 500.3173a(4).” The case stemmed from her involvement in a 2021 motor vehicle collision. She first argued “that the trial court deprived her of procedural due process by sua sponte entering an amended order granting Farm Bureau’s motion for reconsideration after” initially denying it. The trial court’s “decision to do so fell within its considerable discretion to grant reconsideration, . . . and it was otherwise free to revisit Farm Bureau’s reconsideration motion that it previously denied[.]” The court held that on “these bases, and because Washington does not argue that she was deprived of notice or a meaningful opportunity to be heard in relation to Farm Bureau’s summary disposition motion, [she] has failed to establish that the trial court deprived her of procedural due process.” As to the trial court’s ruling that she was ineligible for PIP benefits under MCL 500.3173a(4), the court held that “the trial court did not err by concluding as a matter of law that Washington knowingly made false statements material to her claim for PIP benefits.” The record reflected that she “misrepresented the nature and extent of her preexisting medical conditions and injuries. In her original application for PIP benefits, [she] stated that she sustained injuries in the collision, resulting in pain throughout her entire body, including her eye, right side, back, neck, and left leg. Washington claimed that she did not have any preexisting medical conditions and had not previously incurred any of the injuries she sustained in the collision. But she later disclosed that . . . she was blind in her right eye because she suffered a detached retina as a child and had a portion of her eye surgically removed in 2012. She recounted an incident in 2012 in which she sustained injuries after a panel of cement collapsed from under her. And she disclosed that she was diagnosed with or sought treatment for several conditions before the collision, including cervical pain, lumbar pain, degenerative joint disease, carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, and bilateral knee pain.” Thus, the record reflected “that Washington made false statements material to her claim for PIP benefits.” Affirmed.