Healthcare provider action for personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits; The parked-vehicle exclusion; MCL 500.3105(1); Exception in MCL 500.3106(1)(b); Kemp v Farm Bureau Gen Ins Co of MI; Adanalic v Harco Nat’l Ins Co; The “transportational function requirement”; Putkamer v Transamerica Ins Corp of Am

In this action for PIP benefits brought by a healthcare provider, the court held (as it did in a related case brought by the injured person) that the trial court erred as to the exception to the parked-vehicle exclusion in MCL 500.3106(1)(b). Thus, as it did in the related case (Djeljaj v American Alternative Ins Corp, which appeared in the 5/25/23 edition), it reversed summary disposition for defendant-insurer and remanded. Plaintiff’s patient, Djeljaj, was strapped to a stretcher, being loaded into an ambulance when the stretcher overturned and he hit the pavement with his head and shoulder. The trial court interpreted Kemp as requiring plaintiff show “that (1) Djeljaj owned or possessed the property, (2) he was in physical contact with the property and either lifting it from or onto the vehicle, and (3) he was injured due to physical contact with that property.” The court concluded it misconstrued Kemp as to this “first ‘requirement[.]’” It found that a requirement that “the property at issue be owned or possessed by the plaintiff” would be at odds with MCL 500.3106(1)(b)’s plain language, “which contains no words mandating an interest in the property beyond the requirement of ‘physical contact’ with ‘property being lifted or lowered from the vehicle in the loading or unloading process.’” The trial court also determined that the provision did not apply “because Djeljaj was not actively engaged in lifting the property—that is, the stretcher—into the ambulance. This reasoning is again unavailing because neither the plain statutory language nor Kemp imposes such a requirement.” The trial court further reasoned “that Djeljaj’s injuries were caused not by his contact with the stretcher, but by his contact with the ground when the stretcher overturned.” But the court rejected this reasoning in Adanalic. “Djeljaj’s contact with the ground was inextricably tied to his physical contact with the stretcher. But for having been secured to the stretcher, Djeljaj would never have fallen to the ground and sustained injuries upon impact.” Given that the evidence suggested “Djeljaj’s injury was a direct result of physical contact with the stretcher as it was being lifted onto the ambulance in the loading process, the trial court erred by concluding that MCL 500.3106(1)(b) was inapplicable as a matter of law.” The court also concluded, among other things, “that there was a sufficient causal relationship between his injuries and such use of the ambulance.”