INTERVENING PROVIDER'S CLAIMS DO NOT RELATE BACK TO UNDERLYING CLAIMANT'S SUIT

Paul M. Kittinger

In the published case of Farrar and Focus Imaging, LLC v Suburban Mobile Authority for Regional Transportation (“SMART”), ___ Mich App ___ (2/9/23), the Court of Appeals considered the timeliness of an intervening provider’s suit and ruled that the claim could not “relate back” to the original claimant’s complaint.

Farrar was riding on a SMART bus that was struck by another vehicle on February 13, 2019. Plaintiff Focus Imaging alleges it provided services attributable to the accident three weeks later on March 6, 2019. Farrar filed a first party PIP suit against SMART almost a year later on February 11, 2020. (Plaintiff’s accident occurred before the June 2019 amendments; the priority statute and analysis has changed for accidents occurring on or after June 11, 2019). Plaintiff Focus Imaging filed a motion to intervene in Farrar’s PIP suit on February 11, 2021.  The trial court allowed the intervening complaint.

SMART sought summary disposition on Plaintiff Focus Imaging’s Claims (along with the claims that Farrar was asserting relating to providers where there were assignments). As to Focus, SMART argued that the claims were barred by the one year back rule since the services were rendered in March 2019 and the intervening complaint was not filed until February 2021. The trial court found that Plaintiff Focus Imaging’s claims related back to Farrar’s original complaint. The Court of Appeals granted SMART’s application for leave to appeal.

The Court of Appeals ruled that Plaintiff Focus Imaging’s claims were untimely. Its treatment of plaintiff on March 6, 2019 required it to file its lawsuit within a year by March 6, 2020. (As this was a pre-amendment date of service, the prior version of the one year back rule–without any tolling provisions–governed). But Plaintiff Focus Imaging did not do so. Instead, it waited almost two years after it rendered services to file its (intervening) complaint against SMART. The Court of Appeals rejected Plaintiff Focus Imaging’s argument that the claims “relate back” to Farrar’s timely filed complaint. (“Relation back” is a legal doctrine that allows a subsequent pleading to be deemed filed at the time of an earlier pleading).  The Court of Appeals reaffirmed the long held principle that the “relation back” doctrine does not apply to the addition of new parties, and that here, plaintiff was a different and new party from Farrar.  As the action by Focus Imaging was not commenced within a year of incurring the claims, Focus was precluded from seeking recovery of those benefits.

As to the claims of the other providers, the Court of Appeals also reversed. It concluded that when Farrar executed assignments to those entities, they became the real party in interest vested with the sole ability to make those claims. Farrar lacked standing to sue for recovery of these bills.