Personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits; Whether an insurer was in the order of priority; MCL 500.3114(4); Applicable version of the statute; Availability of other benefits; MCL 500.3172(5); Coordination pf health insurance benefits & no-fault coverage; Same loss; Michigan Automobile Insurance Placement Facility (MAIPF)

The court held that the trial court correctly granted defendant-Liberty Mutual summary disposition because plaintiff-healthcare provider was required, under MCL 500.3114(4), “to seek PIP benefits through the assigned claims plan.” But it vacated the trial court’s opinion “insofar as it ruled on the extent of” Liberty Mutual’s policy’s coverage. Further, it concluded the trial court erred in granting defendant-Nationwide (the MAIPF-assigned insurer) summary disposition under MCL 500.3172(5). Plaintiff treated nonparty-CJ for injuries he sustained in a 2/20 motor-vehicle collision. CJ was “driving a car insured by Liberty Mutual” pursuant to a policy issued to nonparty-BJ. There was no dispute that, at the time of the accident, CJ was not named in that policy and he was not her “spouse or relative domiciled in the same household.” As a result, CJ “was ‘not covered under a [PIP] policy as provided in [MCL 500.3114(1)],’ so, under Subsection (4), plaintiff, as [CJ’s] assignee, was required to ‘claim [PIP] benefits under the assigned claims plan.’” As to plaintiff’s argument about which version of the statute applied, its assertion that CJ had a vested right in BJ’s “policy with Liberty Mutual when the policy issued is incorrect; a party’s rights under an insurance policy ‘vest[] at the time of the accident.’” The current version of MCL 500.3114(4) was in effect at that time. But the court noted that it affirmed “the trial court based solely on the fact that, under MCL 500.3114(4), plaintiff was required to seek benefits through the assigned claims plan.” The court stated that neither its “opinion nor the trial court’s opinion bar Nationwide from pursuing reimbursement from Liberty Mutual under the policy it issued to” BJ. As to Nationwide’s summary disposition motion, the court held that the trial court erred in granting it “because Nationwide failed to establish that” CJ’s health insurance policy “covered the same loss that Nationwide was covering.” Because that policy “did not cover the injuries he sustained as a result of the” 2/20 accident, “Nationwide was not entitled to reduce the benefits it owed [him] (and consequently plaintiff, as [his] assignee) under MCL 500.3172(5) on the basis of” that policy. The court affirmed in part and vacated in part the order granting Liberty Mutual’s summary disposition motion, reversed the order granting Nationwide’s summary disposition motion, and remanded.