Michigan Court of Appeals; Docket # 347317; Unpublished
Judges Stephens, O’Brien and Redford; per curiam
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: Not Applicable; Link to Opinion
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Disqualification for Uninsured Owners or Registrants of Involved Motor Vehicles or Motorcycles [§3113(b)]
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Discovery Sanctions in First-Party Cases
SUMMARY:
In this unanimous unpublished per curiam opinion, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s order dismissing plaintiff’s claims due to spoilation of evidence. In doing so, the Court held that plaintiff’s motorized bicycle was not an off-road vehicle as a matter of law. Thus, an inspection of the motorized bike was necessary for defendant to determine its categorization as it related to plaintiff’s ability to claim no-fault benefits, and plaintiff’s disposal of the bike constituted egregious conduct that could not be remedied with lesser sanctions.
This case arose from an accident between plaintiff – driving a motorized bike with an aftermarket gasoline combustion engine installed – and another vehicle. Plaintiff had no insurance for his motorized bicycle or other coverage under the no-fault act, and looked to defendant, the no-fault insurer of the automobile involved in the accident, to provide PIP benefits. Before litigation began, defendant requested to inspect plaintiff’s motorized bike as part of its investigation into his claim for no-fault benefits. Before doing so, defendant cautioned plaintiff to refrain from altering or discarding the evidence before its inspection. Defendant’s purpose for inspecting the bike was to ascertain whether it was categorized as a motorcycle, moped, or an off-road vehicle under the no-fault act. This categorization was of significant importance to defendant, as moped and off-road vehicle owners are not required to carry insurance under the no-fault act despite remaining entitled to receive PIP benefits for injuries sustained in an accident involving a motor vehicle. Motorcycle owners, on the other hand, are disqualified from receiving PIP benefits when uninsured. Despite defendant’s inspection requests, plaintiff disposed of the bicycle and motor. Defendant subsequently moved for dismissal of plaintiff’s case as a sanction for spoilation of evidence. The trial court granted the motion.
On appeal, the Court turned to plaintiff’s first claim that his motorized bicycle was an off-road vehicle as a matter of law, and that defendant had no need to inspect it, rending moot its protestations over spoilation. In analyzing this claim, the Court noted that an off-road vehicle is “a motor-driven recreation vehicle designed for off-road use and capable of cross-country travel without benefit of road or trail, on or immediately over land, snow, ice, marsh, swampland, or other terrain.” However, plaintiff’s motorized bicycle was powered by a gasoline combustion engine, plaintiff extensively used the motorized bicycle for transportation on paved roadways and not for off-road use, and plaintiff’s testimony indicated that the motorize bike had “at least some basic safety features consistent with use on public roadways such as a gasoline-powered motor, an exhaust system, front and rear brakes, lights, a clutch, and a speedometer-odometer.” Thus, the Court concluded that the record did not support the conclusion that, as a matter of law, plaintiff’s motorized bicycle constituted an off-road vehicle.
The Court then turned to the plaintiff’s next argument that the trial court abused its discretion by dismissing his case as a sanction. In analyzing this claim, the Court noted that dismissal is appropriate “where the record indicated that a party engaged in ‘egregious conduct.’” The Court agreed with the holding of the trial court, finding that plaintiff knew of the importance of preserving the bicycle because defendant had requested to inspect it twice, and that plaintiff’s failure to preserve the bicycle unfairly prejudiced defendant by leaving it without the opportunity to examine or test the bike to ascertain its categorization. Further, the Court held that the trial court’s sanction did not “fall outside the range of reasonable and principled outcomes,” as the plaintiff “committed egregious conduct that a lesser sanction could not remedy.” Specifically, the Court agreed with the trial court that imposing a lesser sanction of precluding plaintiff from testifying as to any description of the motorized bicycle would have the same result, because in the absence of plaintiff’s testimony, no evidence existed as to the categorization of his motorized bicycle, and plaintiff would be unable to prove his entitlement to no-fault benefits. While plaintiff argued that dismissal was too drastic of a sanction on the grounds that his destruction of the motorized bicycle was not done with the intention of hiding the truth, the Court was unpersuaded, reasoning that “plaintiff’s motivation for disposing of his motorized bicycle does not excuse his failure to preserve evidence that he knew or reasonably should have known had special relevance to his claim for PIP benefits from defendant.” Thus, the Court concluded:
Because we conclude that the trial court acted within its discretion in dismissing the case because of plaintiff’s spoliation of evidence, we need not decide whether the trial court erred by granting defendant summary disposition of his claim on the merits. Even so, we note that, had the trial court exercised its inherent authority and precluded plaintiff from testifying regarding the motorized bicycle, in the absence of plaintiff’s testimony, the record reflects that insufficient evidence existed concerning the pertinent characteristics of the motorized bicycle to establish plaintiff’s entitlement to PIP benefits. Accordingly, alternative grounds existed for granting defendant summary disposition of plaintiff’s claims.
