Michigan Court of Appeals; Docket # 343124; Unpublished
Judges Riordan, Kelly, and Cameron; Per curiam
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: Not Applicable; Link to Opinion
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Not Applicable
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Intervention by Service Providers and Third Party Payors in PIP Claims
SUMMARY:
In this unanimous unpublished per curiam decision, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s order denying the plaintiff’s medical providers’ motion to intervene in the plaintiff’s first-party action to recover no-fault PIP benefits, but remanded for correction of a settlement agreement the plaintiff, Keiarra Jackson, reached in the underlying action because it extinguished all the outstanding claims of her medical providers who were not parties to the litigation. To the extent that the settlement agreement precluded the plaintiff’s medical providers from enforcing their contractual rights against her and from seeking payment of unpaid medical bills related to the injuries she suffered in the subject motor vehicle collision above and beyond what the trial court apportioned to them out of the settlement proceeds, the settlement needed to be corrected.
Plaintiff Keairra Jackson was injured after the bus she was traveling on was involved in a collision with another vehicle. After the collision, she sought treatment from numerous medical providers and filed a lawsuit against the owner of the bus, the City of Detroit. During the course of the Jackson’s litigation, several of her providers either filed motions to intervene or filed notices of liens and sought to be apprised of any settlement proceedings. Several of her providers, including Phsyio-Dynamics LLC (“PD”, collectively, hereinafter), waited almost two years to file an emergency motion to intervene, which the trial court ultimately denied because “it was ‘late’ in light of the pendency of the action since [nearly two years prior].” Jackson ultimately settled her claim for $55,000, and sought equitable dispersion of the balance after costs and attorney fees were deducted among her various providers. PD filed a motion in opposition to Jackson’s motion for equitable apportionment of the settlement proceeds, not because they were opposed to apportionment, but because the proposed amounts they were to receive were a mere fraction of the amounts Jackson owed them. The trial court approved the settlement, and in so doing, determined that PD lacked standing to oppose its apportionment. Notably, the language of the trial court’s order approving the settlement effectively extinguished any outstanding claims against Jackson of any entities that were not parties to the litigation.
The Court of Appeals first affirmed the trial court’s denial of PD’s motion to intervene in Jackson’s first-party action, finding that the denial was within the range of principled outcomes. As the Court noted, PD “did not formally seek to intervene in the litigation” until “the case was in the resolution stage [after] multiple facilitation hearings.” Thus, “in light of the delay in seeking to intervene in the lawsuit, the trial court’s decision to deny intervention was appropriate under the circumstances.”
The Court of Appeals did agree with PD, however, that the trial court’s order approving the settlement was erroneous insofar as it extinguished their contractual rights. The Court thus remanded the order back to the trial court to be corrected so as to preserve PD’s contractual rights to collect the remaining balance of Jackson’s unpaid medical bills after the settlement apportionment.
In light of Miller, we need not address whether appellants had standing. Rather, pursuant to Miller, the trial court’s order of equitable apportion of settlement proceeds improperly held that it constituted “full and final payment for all services rendered by the providers listed below, resulting from the automobile accident of April 17, 2015[.]” Instead, the court’s order solely resolved all claims between plaintiff, her attorney, and defendant City of Detroit. It did not foreclose the healthcare providers from pursuing their contractual rights with plaintiff and any liens or assignments executed between the providers and plaintiff. Thus, the broad language in the court’s distribution order inappropriately concluded that the providers received full and final payment without regard to their contractual relationship with plaintiff as obtained through liens and assignments. Accordingly, we remand for correction of the final order to comport with the Miller order and Covenant decision.
