QUESTIONS OF CAUSAL CONNECTION, DOMICILE AND DISCOVERY

Dylan J. Church

In Kaur v. Citizens Insurance Company of the Midwest, Case No. 355683, the trial court granted motions for partial summary disposition filed by both Plaintiff and Third-Party Defendant Meemic Insurance Company. Citizens appealed each of these rulings resulting in the Court of Appeals reversing them all.

This case began in Canton, Michigan, on October 6, 2016. Plaintiff Harbans Kaur was walking across a residential street in her neighborhood when she was allegedly struck by a vehicle driven by Kishore Yerukola. Plaintiff filed three lawsuits following this accident. The first lawsuit was quickly dismissed by stipulation and was of no significance to the appeal. The second lawsuit sought payment of personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits from Meemic, which was the auto insurer of Plaintiff’s son with whom she claimed to reside in Canton, Michigan. In the third lawsuit, Plaintiff sued Citizens, the insurer of Kishore Yerukola, and Citizens filed a third-party complaint against Meemic on the grounds that Meemic was in a higher order of priority under the No-Fault Act to pay PIP benefits.

Meanwhile, in the second lawsuit, Meemic had obtained summary disposition on the basis that Plaintiff was domiciled in Canada and could not, therefore, seek PIP benefits through her son’s Michigan policy. As a third-party in the third lawsuit, Meemic successfully argued that the doctrine res judicata should bar Citizens’ third party lawsuit against Meemic. Citizens appealed the trial court’s dismissal of Meemic and the Court of Appeals remanded the case back to the trial court for the two insurers to litigate the question of domicile before the same court.

Following remand to the trial court, all three parties filed motions that later became the subject of the present appeal. Plaintiff filed a motion for partial summary disposition on the issue of whether her injuries arose from the use of a motor vehicle, as is required to be shown under Section 3015 of the No-Fault Act. The trial court granted this motion. Meemic filed a motion for partial summary disposition seeking dismissal from the case on the basis that Plaintiff was “domiciled” in Canada and not her son’s Michigan home. The trial court also granted this motion. Finally, Citizens brought a motion to compel supplemental discovery, which sought updated medical records from Plaintiff as well as the ability to conduct an additional deposition and IME of the Plaintiff. The trial court granted Citizens’ motion in part by ordering that Plaintiff provide supplemental documentation, but denied the motion to the extent that Citizens sought an additional deposition and IME of the plaintiff.

On appeal, the Court first considered whether a motor vehicle was involved in the subject accident. The Court noted that physical contact is not an absolute prerequisite to proving causation under the No-Fault Act. Under circumstances where a person sustains injury while acting to evade possible danger presented by a motor vehicle, the Court explained that the relevant question is whether an objective person in those circumstances would have concluded there was a need for evasive measures, citing Detroit Med Ctr v Progressive Mich Ins Co, 302 Mich App 392 (2013). Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Citizens, the Court found a question of fact whether the motor vehicle posed a danger to Plaintiff because Plaintiff testified she only remembered falling and waking up near the vehicle, and Yerukola testified he came to a complete stop without striking Plaintiff, and saw Plaintiff fall while trying to walk out of the street.

The Court next turned to the issue of domicile. The Court noted that the depositions of both Plaintiff and her husband were rather inconclusive regarding which home they regarded as their primary residence. Based on the fact that the Plaintiff appeared to split her life completely between Michigan and Canada, as well as the fact that the Plaintiff’s expressed intent may have been to reside permanently in Michigan, the Court found that the factual circumstances were insufficiently clear to justify summary disposition in favor of Meemic.

Finally, the Court addressed the trial court’s partial denial of Citizens’ request for further discovery. The Court found the trial court’s decision to deny any further deposition of the plaintiff to be fundamentally unfair and prejudicial, such that it “[left] Citizens somewhat blind in trying to defend against [Plaintiff’s] claims.” The Court also explained that, without another IME, Citizens “would be left to accept without question any documents submitted by the plaintiff and would be denied opportunity to obtain independent information concerning any recent changes in plaintiff’s medical status or treatments.”