Auto negligence; Judicial estoppel; Opland v Kiesgan; Attorney fees

The court held that because defendants-driver (Schneider) and vehicle owner (Morin) failed to establish the requirements of judicial estoppel, and because the circumstances of the case would not further the doctrine’s purpose, the trial court erred by granting them summary disposition on judicial estoppel grounds, and by granting them attorney fees. Plaintiff and Schneider were involved in a car accident in 2016. Defendants asserted that, in a separate action against her insurers, the trial court and insurers relied on her “statements that her injuries were solely related to the 2016 accident, as opposed to the 2016 accident aggravating her preexisting injuries from 2012.” Defendants noted she indicated in the current case that the 2016 injuries exacerbated the injuries associated with the 2012 accident. On appeal, the court found there was no indication that the trial court in the earlier action “accepted as true plaintiff’s position that she sustained all of her injuries in the 2016 accident.” Instead, plaintiff and one of the insurers “reached a settlement concerning plaintiff’s first-party claim and then, on the basis of their agreement to settle the matter,” the complaint was dismissed. She “also did not offer wholly inconsistent positions in the” earlier case and the present case. “[P]laintiff argued that she suffered new injuries from the 2016 accident, but she did not contend that her injuries were solely due to the 2016 accident.” Notwithstanding her “statement in an interrogatory response that she felt she had made a full recovery from her 2012 traumatic brain injury, that was not the only injury she suffered in 2012, and she simultaneously stated that she ‘still had some minor residuals from the previous crash.’ The issue of whether the injuries from the 2016 accident were new, as opposed to an exacerbation of the injuries associated with the 2012 accident, is a question of causation.” In addition, applying the doctrine was “not necessary to avoid a miscarriage of justice. Defendants can attempt to impeach plaintiff’s credibility at trial and can attempt to demonstrate that the alleged 2016 injuries did not result in a serious impairment of a body function that affected” her ability to lead her normal life. Even if the insurer improperly relied on her “statements that her injuries were caused solely by the 2016 accident when settling” that case, this would place the insurer “—not defendants—at a financial disadvantage.” Reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.