Michigan Supreme Court; Docket No. 69370; Published
Opinion by Justice Kavanagh; Unanimous
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: 420 Mich 549; Link to Opinion 
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Scope of Mandated Coverages [§3131(1)]
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Casualty Insurance Policies – Minimum Coverages and Required Provisions (MCL 500.3009)
CASE SUMMARY:
This unanimous Opinion by Justice Kavanagh is an appeal of Item No. 500. The Supreme Court was to decide the question reserved in State Farm v Ruuska (Item No. 217) of whether portable residual liability coverage is required by the no-fault act when the insured drives another vehicle that is uninsured. The court elected not to decide this issue in this case for the reason that there were disputed questions of material fact that had not been properly resolved in the trial court - the most noteworthy of which was whether the vehicle involved in this case was insured or uninsured.
The court commented that if the vehicle involved in this case was insured, then perhaps it may be necessary to reconsider the holding in State Farm v Sivey, 404 Mich 51 (1978). That case held that an exclusion from liability coverage for bodily injury to an insured or any member residing in the same household as the insured was violative of the Motor Vehicle Code. If the authority of Sivey was vitiated by a 1978 amendment to §3131 of the no-fault act and if §3009(1) of the Insurance Code does not require residual liability coverage when a vehicle is being operated by an authorized driver and if the exclusionary clause in issue is valid, "then the no-fault act may not require residual liability coverage unless an insured vehicle is being driven by the owner insured. The result could be that often there would be no residual liability insurance applicable to an insured vehicle."
Due to the fact that these are issues of great moment under the no-fault statute, the court decided that it would not address them in this case, but would wait until the questions were fully developed factually and amicus briefs could be received from the plaintiff’s and defendant's bars.
