Marquette County Circuit Court; Docket No. 11877; Unpublished
Judge John E. McDonald; Written Opinion
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: Not Applicable: Link to Opinion 
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Nature of Survivor’s Loss Benefits [§3108(1)]
Calculation of Survivor’s Loss Benefits And Maximums [§3108(1)]
Dependents [§3108(1)]
Standards for Deductibility of State and Federal Governmental Benefits [§3109(1)]
Social Security Survivor’s Benefits [§3109(1)]
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Not Applicable
CASE SUMMARY:
In this written Opinion, Judge McDonald held that for purposes of no-fault survivor's loss benefits, an 18 year-old full time college student who was relying upon his deceased father for support at the time of the father's death, must be considered to have been a "dependent" of his father at the time of death and, therefore, it would be permissible for the no-fault insurance company to deduct from the no-fault survivor's loss payments made to the father's survivors that amount which the college son received in federal social security children's benefits growing out of the father's death. In reaching this conclusion, Judge McDonald noted that the college son had been listed as a dependent for income tax purposes and had also been declared to be a dependent for social security purposes. Accordingly, the plaintiff widow was hard pressed at this point to deny the dependency of her son for no-fault purposes so as to avoid a setoff of his social security survivor's benefits.
[Author's Comment: Apparently, the litigants did not raise the issue of apportioning the no-fault survivor's loss benefits between the widow and the son and then limiting a setoff of the son's social security benefits against only his no-fault benefits. This approach is suggested in the case of Thompson v DAIIE (item number 426) regarding wage loss benefits.]
