Michigan Court of Appeals; Docket No. 78-1941; Published
Judges T. M. Burns, Kaufman, and Maher; 2-1
Official Michigan Reporter Citation: 90 Mich App 329; Link to Opinion 
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Nature of Survivor’s Loss Benefits [§3108(1)]
Disqualification for Uninsured Owners or Registrants of Involved Motor Vehicles or Motorcycles [§3113(b)]
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Legislative Purpose and Intent
CASE SUMMARY:
In rejecting the holdings of three previous decisions, this panel of the Court of Appeals held in a 2-1 decision by Judge T. M. Burns, that the dependents of a deceased individual who was uninsured at the time of the accident, are not themselves disqualified from receiving survivors loss benefits by the provisions of §3113(b) even though the uninsured deceased would have been precluded from receiving wage loss benefits by virtue of that provision had he lived. In so holding, the majority reelected the opinions in Belcher (item number 77), Hamilton (item number 112), and Shaffer (item number 92).
The majority held that an examination of the entire no-fault statute taken as a whole leads to the conclusion that dependents of deceased uninsured motorists are entitled to benefits and are not disqualified by virtue of the fact that the deceased would have been disqualified had he or she survived. The Court noted that the actual language of §3113(b) speaks in terms of disqualifying the person who was uninsured. In other words, the disqualifications of §3113 are personal. Thus, they cannot be extended to the widow and child who were not the owners or registrants of an uninsured vehicle involved in the subject accident.
Thus, plaintiff/widow and her child were permitted to recover no-fault survivors' loss benefits from the Assigned Claims Facility pursuant to §3174 and §3177 of the statute.
Judge Kaufman dissented for the reasons expressed in the Shaffer decision.
