Michigan Court of Appeals; Docket No. 212629; Unpublished
Judges Whitbeck, Markman, and O'Connell; Unanimous; Per Curiam
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: Not Applicable; Link to Opinion 
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Exclusion for Vehicles Considered Parked [§3106(1)]
Exception for Occupying [§3106(1)(c)]
Causal Connection Requirement [§3106]
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Not Applicable
CASE SUMMARY:
In this unanimous per curiam unpublished Opinion, the Court of Appeals held that plaintiff, who injured her back while lifting a box of food from the back seat to the front seat of her car, while she was seated in the car, was not entitled to no-fault benefits because her moving or handling of the box was not sufficiently connected causally to the use of the vehicle to transport the item, and therefore, did not satisfy the parked vehicle exceptions contained in section 3106(1) of the act. Plaintiff had been selling pasties to help raise funds for her son's hockey team. She brought the pasties to work in a box in the back of her automobile and then left them in the automobile. Later, she returned to her automobile to unload the box of pasties. She entered the automobile through the driver's side door and sat in the driver's seat with both feet on the floor. She then twisted and turned to her right, reaching behind her and into the back passenger side of the automobile. While attempting to lift the box over the seat, she experienced pain in her back for which she then required medical treatment and, as a consequence, was unable to return to work. Allstate denied PIP benefits, and the trial court granted summary disposition in favor of plaintiff.
The issue in this case concerned whether plaintiff satisfied the parked vehicle provisions of section 3106(l)(a) which allows recovery of PIP benefits for injury sustained by a person while "occupying, entering into, or alighting from the vehicle." Although plaintiff was clearly occupying the vehicle at the time of the injury, the court held that under the Michigan Supreme Court case of Putkamer v Transamerica Insurance Corporation of America, 454 Mich 626 (1997) (Item No. 1929), a claimant for no-fault benefits in parked vehicle situations requires satisfaction of a three-pronged test proving, (1) that the conduct fits one of the three exceptions to subsection 3106(1), (2) the injury arose out of the ownership, operation, maintenance or use of the parked motor vehicle as a motor vehicle, and (3) the injury had a causal relationship to the parked motor vehicle that is more than incidental, fortuitous, or but for.
In this case, since plaintiff was clearly occupying the vehicle at the time of the injury, she satisfied the first prong of the Putkamer test. The court also held that she satisfied the second prong, in that the injury was closely related to the transportational function of motor vehicles, i.e., plaintiff’s injury occurred as she was attempting to unload the box from the vehicle, and loading and unloading items from a vehicle may be an essential component of transporting those items. However, the court held that plaintiff did not satisfy the third prong that the injury have a causal relationship to the parked vehicle.
In this case, the court held that "an injury resulting from the movement of a person reaching for or handling that item is not sufficiently connected causally to the use of the vehicle to transport the item." Although the injury occurred when unloading the vehicle and, therefore, arose out of the use of that vehicle as a motor vehicle, the court held that the injury did not result from any circumstances peculiar to motor vehicles. The court noted that similar movements are made in a wide variety of settings, and concluded that the fact the injury occurred inside a vehicle does not provide a sufficient causal connection. The vehicle in this case was merely the situs of injury and not the cause of it.
