Opinion
SC 166608 COA 363699
10-25-2024
CENTRIA HOME REHABILITATION, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ALLSTATE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
Oakland CC: 2021-189203-NF
Elizabeth T. Clement, Chief Justice Brian K. Zahra David F. Viviano Richard H. Bernstein Megan K. Cavanagh Elizabeth M. Welch Kyra H. Bolden, Justices
ORDER
On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal the December 14, 2023 judgment of the Court of Appeals is considered and, pursuant to MCR 7.305(H)(1), in lieu of granting leave to appeal, we REVERSE the judgment of the Court of Appeals and REMAND this case to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this order. The 2019 amendment to MCL 500.3112 applies "to products, services, or accommodations provided after the effective date of this amendatory act." 2019 PA 21, enacting § 1. Therefore, the Court of Appeals erred by applying the pre-amendment version of MCL 500.3112 to attendant care services that were provided after the effective date of the amendment of that statute. See Centria Home Rehab, LLC v Philadelphia Indemnity Ins Co, 345 Mich.App. 649, 669-670 (2023).
Welch, J. (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the Court's decision to reverse the Court of Appeals' holding that, under the facts of this case, the version of MCL 500.3112 that predated the no-fault act's 2019 amendments applies to the attendant care services reimbursement rates that were provided after the effective date of the amendment of that statute. I believe this is inconsistent with the legal reasoning employed in Andary v USAA Cas Ins Co, 512 Mich. 207 (2023), and the interaction of that decision with general principles of the law of assignments.
The majority cited Centria Home Rehab, LLC v Philadelphia Indemnity Ins Co, 345 Mich.App. 649 (2023), in support of its order. Although it was never appealed to this Court, Philadelphia Indemnity was decided on March 2, 2023. At that time, the law was in flux as to whether some previously injured insured individuals could continue enforcing rights under the pre-2019 version of the no-fault act. In Andary, this Court settled that issue. We held that a person who is directly covered by a no-fault insurance policy (the named insured or an intended beneficiary within the household) who was injured before the 2019 amendments retained a vested right to preamendment no-fault personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits that was not retroactively supplanted by the amendments. Andary, 512 Mich. at 243-244. Although the decision was not unanimous, and Andary did not concern application of MCL 500.3112, Andary is still relevant to the dispute at issue here.
The statutory provisions at issue in Andary were MCL 500.3157(7) and (10), as amended by 2019 PA 21, and MCL 500.2111f(8), as enacted by 2019 PA 21 and 2019 PA 22. MCL 500.3157(7) sets forth the payment caps for non-Medicare reimbursements of PIP-related services. That provision specifically began phasing in the new percentages for treatment "rendered after July 1, 2021." MCL 500.3157(10) capped the number of hours of attendant care that can be rendered for in-home care providers when the caregiver is related, domiciled, or in a prior business or social relationship with the injured. Subsection (10) was silent as to when the new cap for services rendered would begin, and thus the June 11, 2019, effective date of 2019 PA 21 controlled.
Similarly, MCL 500.2111f(8) provides as follows:
An insurer shall pass on, in filings to which this section applies, savings realized from the application of section 3157(2) to (12) to treatment, products, services, accommodations, or training rendered to individuals who suffered accidental bodily injury from motor vehicle accidents that occurred before July 2, 2021. An insurer shall provide the director with all documents and information requested by the director that the director determines are necessary to allow the director to evaluate the insurer's compliance with this subsection. After July 1, 2022, the director shall review all rate filings to which this section applies for compliance with this subsection. [Emphasis added.]
In Andary, this Court held that the previously quoted language from the amended no-fault act did not reflect a clear expression of legislative intent to make the statutory amendments retroactively applicable to directly insured individuals whose rights vested under a preamendment policy of insurance. Andary, 512 Mich. at 246-250. This meant that the preamendment no-fault act provisions that had been incorporated into the insurance policy governed the plaintiffs' PIP benefits and family-provided attendant care even when benefits or care were sought after the amendments became effective. Id. at 256-257.
The statute at issue in this case, MCL 500.3112, contains no express statement of legislative intent to apply the amended statute retroactively to previously vested contractual insurance rights. I acknowledge that 2019 PA 21 contains the following enacting language: "Enacting section 1. Section 3112 of the insurance code of 1956, 1956 PA 218, MCL 500.3112, as amended by this amendatory act, applies to products, services, or accommodations provided after the effective date of this amendatory act." (Emphasis added). Enacting language in a public act, although not codified in statutory text, is relevant to interpreting and applying statutes and can be indicative of legislative intent to give a newly enacted or amended statute retroactive effect. See e.g., Dell v Citizens Ins Co of America, 312 Mich.App. 734, 745 (2015) (confirming the retroactive effective date of a statute by reference to the statute's enacting section). But the enacting language in 2019 PA 21 that concerns MCL 500.3112 is analogous to language in MCL 500.3157 and MCL 500.2111f(8), which we held in Andary was not a clear indication of the Legislature's intent to apply the amended statute to previously vested contractual insurance rights. I see no reason to treat MCL 500.3112 any differently than MCL 500.3157 and MCL 500.2111f(8) under the facts of this case. This parallel to Andary is critical to why Philadelphia Indemnity should not, in my view, be applied in this case.
The Court of Appeals panel in Philadelphia Indemnity could not predict our precise decision in Andary, and we never had a chance to review Philadelphia Indemnity because no party sought leave to appeal to this Court. In other words, Philadelphia Indemnity never assessed when the PIP benefits at issue (and the attendant payments owed) vested, and thus never considered whether that affected the rights that were assigned or which version of the no-fault act applied to vested preamendment rights that had been assigned to a healthcare provider. I believe the reasoning employed in Andary is applicable, and this calls into question the propriety of applying the pre-Andary decision of Philadelphia Indemnity to the current case.
In both this case and Philadelphia Indemnity the directly insured individuals were injured in vehicle crashes that occurred in 2018, before the 2019 amendments of the no-fault act. The insurance policies incorporated the no-fault act as it existed at the time the policy was issued. In Andary, we held that the rights associated with a no-fault insurance contract vested at the time of the vehicle crash that injured the insured. The reasoning employed in Andary leads to the conclusion that, unless there is statutory language to the contrary, the insured injured individuals hold a vested right to enforcement of the preamendment no-fault act with respect to their claims for insurance benefits. In both Philadelphia Indemnity and this case, the insured individuals assigned their rights to claim no-fault insurance benefits to Centria Home Rehabilitation, LLC, which was operating as their healthcare provider. Thus, in both cases, Centria sought payment as the assignee of the injured insured individuals. A well-settled principle of the law of assignments is that the assignee stands in the shoes of the assignor such that the assignee acquires and can enforce the same rights held by the assignor. See Mecosta Co Med Ctr v Metro Group Prop & Cas Ins Co, 509 Mich. 276, 284 (2022); Prof Rehab Assoc v State Farm Mut Auto Ins Co, 228 Mich.App. 167, 177 (1998).
The assignors in both lawsuits filed by Centria appear to have a vested right to enforcement of the preamendment no-fault act with respect to their claims for insurance benefits. Under Andary, this holds true even if the services at issue were provided after the amendments took effect. It logically follows that the assignee healthcare providers hold the same vested rights as the insured individuals who were the assignors. Therefore, because the injured assignor is entitled to application of the preamendment no-fault act, the assignee healthcare provider is also entitled to-or perhaps compelled to accept- application of the preamendment no-fault act.
In this case, the Court of Appeals held that the preamendment version of MCL 500.3112 applied because the crash that injured the insured individual occurred before the 2019 no-fault amendments. This appears to be the legally correct conclusion, but the Court of Appeals did not assess the nuances involved, given that this case involves an assignment of benefits and those benefits are considered vested under Andary. I believe the Court is committing error by reversing the Court of Appeals and relying on Philadelphia Indemnity, and I am concerned that the Court's order will cause confusion for the bench and bar. There could be other aspects of the Court of Appeals' decision in this case that warrant the Court's attention, and perhaps this Court will decide other issues following a remand. However, as the author of Andary, I cannot support the present course of action, and therefore I respectfully dissent.