Michigan Supreme Court; Docket Nos. 142545 and 142547; Published
4-3 Memorandum Opinion, Joined by Justices Young, Markman, M.B. Kelly, and Zahra
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: Forthcoming; Link to Opinion 
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Exclusion for Vehicles Considered Parked [§3106(1)]
Exception for Permanently Mounted Equipment Use [§3106(1)(b)]
Exception for Entering Into or Alighting From [§3106(1)(c)]
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Not applicable
CASE SUMMARY:
In this 4-3 Memorandum Opinion issued in lieu of granting leave to appeal, the Michigan Supreme Court held that plaintiff was not entitled to no-fault PIP benefits under the parked vehicle provisions of Section 3106(1)(b) and (c) of the No-Fault Act. Accordingly, the majority Opinion reversed the Court of Appeals.
The plaintiff in this case was injured when she slipped and fell on a patch of ice while closing the passenger side door of her vehicle. She had placed a few personal items in the passenger compartment of the vehicle via the passenger door, stood up, placed her left hand on the door of the vehicle in order to close it, stepped back, and with her left hand on the passenger door, began to close the door. As she was closing the door with her left hand, she slipped on a patch of ice and injured herself.
In analyzing plaintiff’s entitlement to no-fault benefits under Section 3105(1) and the parked vehicle exceptions of Section 3106(1), the court commented on the inter-relationship between these two sections in the following language:
Section 3105(1) sets forth the parameters of personal protection coverage. . . . MCL 500.3106(1) expressly delineates when “accidental bodily injury aris[es] out of the ownership, operation, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle as a motor vehicle” if the vehicle is parked. Therefore, in the case of a parked motor vehicle, a claimant must demonstrate that his or her injury meets one of the requirements of MCL 500.3106(1) because unless one of those requirements is met, the injury does not arise out of the use of a vehicle as a motor vehicle, under MCL 500.3105(1).
Having given that brief explanation regarding the interplay between Section 3105(1) and Section 3106(1), the court found that plaintiff’s injury did not fall into either of the exceptions set forth in Section 3106(1)(b) or (c).
With regard to the vehicle equipment exception set forth in Section 3106(1)(b), the court drew an important distinction between “constituent parts of a vehicle” and “vehicle equipment.” In this regard, the court stated:
MCL 500.3106(1)(b) centers on the distinction between “equipment” and “the vehicle.”. . . Because all functioning vehicles must be composed of constituent parts, no single article constitutes “the vehicle.” This reality creates the potential for the definition of “equipment” to engulf that of “the vehicle.” However, the language of MCL 500.3106(1)(b) forecloses this possibility by requiring that the “equipment” be “mounted on the vehicle,” which indicates that the constituent parts of “the vehicle” itself are not “equipment.”. . . Based on the foregoing analysis, plaintiff is not entitled to benefits under the no-fault act because her injury did not arise out of the use of a parked vehicle under MCL 500.3106(1). . . . Insofar as she was in contact with the door of the vehicle at the time of her injury, she was clearly in contact with the vehicle itself, not with “equipment” mounted thereon. Therefore, her injury was not “a direct result of physical contact with equipment permanently mounted on the vehicle . . . .” MCL 500.3106(1)(b).
Therefore, pursuant to the foregoing analysis, the court held that plaintiff’s injury did not occur as a direct result of physical contact with equipment permanently mounted on the vehicle because plaintiff was only in contact with the vehicle door which was considered to be a “constituent part of the vehicle,” not permanently mounted vehicle equipment.
The court then went on to hold that plaintiff was not entitled to benefits under the “alighting from the vehicle” exception set forth in Section 3106(1)(c). With regard to that issue, the court cited an old Court of Appeals decision in Krueger v Lumbermen’s Mut Cas Co, 112 Mich App 511 (1982) [Red Book Item #433]. In Krueger, the Court of Appeals remarked that alighting is typically accomplished “when both feet are planted firmly on the ground.” In the case at bar, both of plaintiff’s feet were firmly planted on the ground as she was standing outside of her vehicle when closing the door. In further elaboration and citing dictionary definitions, the court stated the following regarding the alighting exception:
Moreover, that the injury must be sustained “while” alighting indicates that “alighting” does not occur in a single moment but occurs as the result of a process. The process begins when a person initiates the descent from a vehicle and is completed when an individual has effectively “descend[ed] from a vehicle” and has “come to rest”—when one has successfully transferred full control of one’s movement from reliance upon the vehicle to one’s body. . . . before her injury, plaintiff had been standing with both feet planted firmly on the ground outside of the vehicle; she was entirely in control of her body’s movement, and she was in no way reliant upon the vehicle itself. Therefore, she was not in the process of “alighting from” the vehicle. At the time of her injury, plaintiff had already alighted.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and held plaintiff was not entitled to PIP benefits. Therefore, defendant’s refusal to pay benefits did not entitle plaintiff to recover attorney fees under Section 3148 of the Act.
Justice Marilyn Kelly wrote a dissenting Opinion, joined by Justice Cavanagh. Justice Kelly’s dissent took issue with the majority’s holding regarding the “alighting” exception set forth in Section 3106(1)(c). However, Justice Kelly’s opinion did not take issue with the majority holding regarding the vehicle equipment exception set forth in Section 3106(1)(b). With regard to the alighting issue, Justice Kelly pointed out that the definition of alighting set forth in Krueger v Lumbermen’s, supra, was not intended to be a complete definition. On the contrary, Justice Kelly stated that under Krueger:
“. . . alighting from a vehicle is a process that may or may not be complete when a person has both feet on the ground. Indeed, as the Court of Appeals noted, a person could be nearly completely inside a vehicle, yet have placed his or her feet outside the vehicle on the ground. That person could not be said to have alighted. In this case, plaintiff . . . was completing the act of alighting from the car by shutting the door when she fell. It appears that plaintiff’s efforts to close her car door caused her feet to slide out from underneath her on the icy parking lot. She could not have completed the process of alighting from the vehicle and moved to the driver’s side without closing the passenger door.”
Justice Hathaway filed a separate dissenting Opinion stating she would deny leave to appeal because she was not persuaded, “this Court should take any further action in this unique, fact-specific case that should have no precedential value.”
