The No-Fault Act; First-party benefits; Work-loss benefits; MCL 500.3107(1)(b); MacDonald v. State Farm Mut. Ins. Co.; Popma v. Auto Club Ins. Ass’n; Snellenberger v. Celina Mut. Ins. Co.; Limitation on the benefit to work losses below a specified income level; Marquis v. Hartford Accident & Indem. (After Remand); Bak v. Citizens Ins. Co. of Am.; Featherly v. AAA Ins. Co.; Suing an at-fault driver for work losses in excess of the limits in MCL 500.3107(1)(b); MCL 500.3135(3)(c); Hannay v. Department of Transp.

The court held that the trial court erred in concluding that the statutory maximum for work-loss benefits under MCL 500.3107(1)(b) applied to the difference between the plaintiff’s income before the accident and afterward. Rather, it “applies to the loss of income incurred in a single 30-day period plus the income that the injured person earned in that same period.” Since it was undisputed that plaintiff earned more than the applicable maximum, he was not entitled to work-loss benefits under MCL 500.3107(1)(b). Thus, the trial court should have granted the defendant-insurer’s motion for partial summary disposition. Plaintiff was injured when his car was rear-ended. He contended that defendant “should pay him a work-loss benefit equal to the difference between his average annual income in the preceding years and his actual annual income in the years after the accident. He claimed approximately $48,000 in lost income for 2011 and approximately $52,000 in lost income for 2012.” The court concluded that by stating that “the ‘benefits payable’ and ‘the income earned’ for the same period ‘together’ shall not exceed the maximum, the Legislature unambiguously provided that a no-fault insurer was obligated to compensate the injured person for the loss of income for work that he or she would have performed were it not for the accident, but only to the extent that the work-loss benefit, when added to the injured person’s income from work performed after the accident during the same period, does not exceed the statutory maximum.” While plaintiff argued that Snellenberger supported his claim, the court concluded that it arrived at the same result using the method applied in Snellenberger to calculate plaintiff’s work-loss benefit. In the years before his 2009 accident, he “made substantially more each month than the applicable statutory maximum of $4,878.” Thus, under the Snellenberger formulation, the statutory maximum was used as his base potential benefit, from which the income that he earned in the same 30-day period was subtracted “to derive his compensable work-loss benefit for that period.” As he continued to make more than $4,878 in every 30-day period even after his injury, his work-loss benefit was 0. The court noted that injured persons with high income “may sue an at-fault driver to recover their work losses in excess of the limits” in MCL 500.3107(1)(b). Reversed and remanded for entry of an order granting defendant partial summary disposition.