The No-Fault Act (NFA); Attorney fees; MCL 500.3148; Reasonableness of the delay in payments; Subject-matter jurisdiction; Amount in controversy; Hodge v State Farm Mut Auto Ins Co; Meisner Law Group PC v. Weston Downs Condo Ass’n

The court held that defendant-insurer “did not create a genuine issue of material fact that its delay” in making payments for medical treatment under the NFA was reasonable and thus, the trial court did not err in granting plaintiffs-providers summary disposition. The trial court also did not abuse its discretion in awarding plaintiffs attorney fees under MCL 500.3148(1). Finally, it did not err by holding that it had subject-matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claims. Defendant argued “that the trial court erred by awarding attorney fees to plaintiffs under MCL 500.3148 because the trial court failed to use the correct analysis and erroneously determined that defendant’s delay in making payments was unreasonable.” The court disagreed. It concluded “that the allegedly ‘conflicting’ evidence regarding coverage did not create a legitimate factual uncertainty about” the injured person’s “insurance coverage, such that it was reasonable for defendant to delay payment.” Further, it found that “nothing that defendant discovered” later created “a legitimate factual uncertainty about its obligation to issue payments.” Defendant also argued “that the trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claim because the no-fault fee schedule limitations reduced plaintiffs’ maximum recovery to an amount below the $25,000 jurisdictional threshold of the circuit court. Additionally, at the time of the motion for summary disposition, plaintiffs admitted that less than $500 in claimed damages remained outstanding.” Defendant argued that the Hodge rule did not apply here “because it was ‘specifically addressed and rejected’ in Meisner[.]” The court concluded that this case was distinguishable from Meisner. It found that it was “clear that plaintiffs’ allegations of damages were unlike those in Meisner that could not exceed $25,000 under any legal theory. To the contrary, plaintiffs alleged that they were owed $76,796.33 on the basis of the bills it submitted to defendant, and defendant made payments toward that amount that—even when reduced according to the [NFA’s] fee schedule—exceeded the jurisdictional threshold of the circuit court. Obviously, then, plaintiffs’ allegation that their claims exceeded the circuit court’s jurisdictional threshold cannot be said to have been made with the same type of bad faith found in Meisner.” The court also found that “defendant’s payments eight months into the litigation do not have any effect on the amount that plaintiffs originally alleged in good faith in their prayer for relief.” Thus, the trial court did not err in ruling that it had subject-matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claims. Affirmed.