Michigan Court of Appeals; Docket No. 299401; Unpublished
Judges Murphy, Fitzgerald, and Talbot; Unanimous, Per Curiam
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: Not applicable; Link to Opinion 
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Entitlement to PIP Benefits: Transportational Function Requirement [§3105(1)]
Exception for Entering into or Alighting from [§3106(1)(c)]
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Not Applicable
CASE SUMMARY:
In this unanimous unpublished per curiam opinion, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary disposition in favor of Farmers Insurance Exchange on the issue of whether the plaintiff was entitled to claim no-fault benefits. The plaintiff in this case was injured when she was exiting her camper and slipped and fell and broke her foot. The plaintiff was apparently exiting the camper after briefly going into obtain her reading glasses. The camper was attached to the bed of a pick-up truck insured by Farmers. At the time the plaintiff fell, the pick-up truck was parked and the camper was being used for purposes of camping.
The plaintiff claimed she was entitled to no-fault benefits based on MCL 500.3105 and MCL 500.3106. Specifically, the plaintiff argued that she was entitled to claim no-fault benefits under the exception to the parked vehicle exclusion set forth in MCL 500.3106, which allows a person to claim no-fault benefits if the person is injured “while occupying, entering into, or alighting from the [parked] vehicle.”
In affirming the trial court’s grant of summary disposition in favor of defendant that the plaintiff was not entitled to claim no-fault benefits, the Court of Appeals recognized that in McKenzie v Auto Club Ins Ass’n, 458 Mich 214 (1998), the Supreme Court made it clear that in order to be entitled to no-fault benefits, a person must establish that the injury arises out of the use of a motor vehicle “as a motor vehicle” and ultimately turns on whether the injury is closely related to the transportational function of the motor vehicle. Furthermore, the Court of Appeals recognized that the Supreme Court’s holding in McKenzie requires a general determination of whether the vehicle in question was being used, maintained, or operated for transportational purposes. In this case, the Court of Appeals found that given the fact that the plaintiff was alighting from the camper after retrieving her reading glasses when the injury occurred, she could not satisfy the transportational function requirement in order to claim no-fault benefits.
