Michigan Court of Appeals; Docket No. 176190; Unpublished
Judges Murphy, Markman, and Fink; Unanimous; Per Curiam
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: Not Applicable; Link to Opinion 
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Not Applicable
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Uninsured Motorist Benefits
Private Contract (Meaning and Intent)
CASE SUMMARY:
In this per curiam unpublished decision, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's holding that uninsured motorist coverage was not available where an unidentified vehicle causing the accident did not come into contact with any of the other vehicles involved.
Plaintiff’s car was stopped at a red light when it was struck by a vehicle being driven by defendant Phair, who had swerved to avoid an unidentified third vehicle that had ran a red light. The unidentified vehicle that had ran the red light, did not come into contact with either plaintiff or Phair's automobile, and left the scene of the accident without stopping. Plaintiff filed suit seeking uninsured motorist benefits for injuries arising out of the accident. The trial court granted summary disposition in favor of the insurer on the grounds that the policy required the uninsured vehicle make physical contact with the insured's vehicle in order for there to be coverage.
On appeal, the plaintiff argued that she had a contractual right to arbitration of the issue of whether the policy's physical contact requirement had been satisfied. However, the policy provided that disagreements concerning whether a motor vehicle involved in the accident was uninsured is not subject to arbitration. Here, the court held that the issue of whether the physical contact requirement had been satisfied determined whether the unidentified third vehicle was uninsured, and, therefore, was not subject to being resolved through arbitration.
Citing Hill v Citizens Insurance Company (Item No. 1024), the Court of Appeals noted that the physical contact provision in the uninsured motor vehicle coverage may be satisfied even though there is no direct contact between a disappearing vehicle and the claimant's vehicle. However, there must be some physical contact with the insured person's vehicle, which could be satisfied in either one of two scenarios:
(a) the hit-and-run vehicle strikes a second or intervening vehicle when in turn is propelled into plaintiffs vehicle: or
(b) an object is propelled into plaintiffs vehicle by an unidentified vehicle.
Here, neither of these two situations were present, and, therefore, uninsured motorist coverage was not available to the plaintiff, as the physical contact requirement had not been met. In this regard, the Court of Appeals stated:
"The instant case does not involve the fact scenario described above in (2). While it is similar to the fact scenario described above in (1), there is an important difference in the present case in that here the unidentified vehicle did not make actual physical contact with Phair's vehicle (or plaintiffs vehicle) The only physical contact that occurred was between plaintiffs and Phair's vehicles In Lord v Auto-Owners Ins Co. 22 Mich App 669; 177 NW2d 653 (1970), this Court held that the 'physical contact' requirement of an uninsured motorist provision was satisfied when an unidentified vehicle struck a second vehicle causing the second vehicle to strike the plaintiffs vehicle. We decline to extend the holding in Lord to the present facts for two reasons. First, in plaintiff’s complaint, plaintiff sought a declaratory ruling compelling arbitration, but did not, like the plaintiff in Lord, seek a declaratory ruling that 'coverage did apply.' Id., 670. Second, the policy clearly requires the unidentified motor vehicle to make 'physical contact with ... a motor vehicle which an insured person is occupying' and here there was no physical contact between the third vehicle and either plaintiffs or Phair's vehicle. In light of the clear policy language and the absence of physical contact between the unidentified vehicle and either plaintiffs or Phair's vehicles, we do not believe that there is a substantial physical nexus between the unidentified vehicle and plaintiffs vehicle." (emphasis in original)
