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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N

C O U R T O F A P P E A L S

JAMES MCKINLEY MILLS,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

and

CITY XPRESS, LLC, MERCY TRANSPORT, 

LLC, and DETROIT ANESTHESIA GROUP, 

PLLC,

Intervening-Plaintiffs,

UNPUBLISHED

August 8, 2017

v No. 331460

Wayne Circuit Court

TITAN INSURANCE COMPANY, LC No. 15-000562-NF

Defendant-Appellant.

Before: FORT HOOD, P.J., and CAVANAGH and RONAYNE KRAUSE, JJ. 

RONAYNE KRAUSE, J. (concurring). 

I concur with the majority in all respects other than the majority’s reasoning for affirming 

the trial court’s refusal to grant summary disposition in favor of defendant regarding any claims 

other than the attendant care claims. My reading of the statute is that whether plaintiff was 

aware of the false information is irrelevant. Either a claim was supported by a fraudulent 

insurance act or it was not. The finding by the trial court and the majority that the attendant care 

claims were supported by claim forms containing dishonesty necessarily precludes payment or 

benefits pursuant to MCL 500.3173a(2). Whether or not plaintiff was involved in or cognizant 

of Bakeley and Mitchell’s dishonesty is, insofar as I can determine, irrelevant. 

However, as the majority observes, this is not a case governed by Bahri v IDS Prop Cas 

Ins Co, 308 Mich App 420; 864 NW2d 609 (2014). There is no policy to rescind. The statute 

precludes “a claim that contains or is supported by a fraudulent insurance act.” MCL 

500.3173a(2) (emphasis added). The Insurance Code does not contain a definition of a “claim” 

that is not self-referential. This Court has held that where an insurance policy fails to define the 

term “claim,” it should be construed broadly as any sort of assertion or demand of a right to 

payment or compensation or otherwise something due from another. Pickney Community 

Schools v Continental Cas Co, 213 Mich App 521, 527-530; 540 NW2d 748 (1995). I would 
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construe “claim” under the Insurance Code analogously. Exclusion of plaintiff’s claims for 

attendant care benefits does not necessarily exclude any other claims he might have, if those 

other claims are not supported by or do not contain a fraudulent insurance act.

I note additionally that Bahri held that the intervening plaintiffs in that case “stood in the 

shoes of the named insured,” precluding those intervening plaintiffs from recovering benefits if 

the plaintiff could not. Bahri, 308 Mich App at 424. Bahri relied on a case involving res 

judicata and a plaintiff who was in privity with a prior claimant and attempting to relitigate the 

issue, an obviously completely different factual scenario. See TCBI, PC v State Farm Mut Auto 

Ins Co, 289 Mich App 39; 795 NW2d 229 (2010). In Bahri, it was not explained why the 

intervening plaintiffs stood in the shoes of the plaintiff under those facts, but presumably if the 

entire policy was rescinded then no claims premised thereon could be pursued. In any event, 

both cases are readily distinguishable: the applicable language here precludes discrete claims, 

whereas the applicable language in both Bahri and TCBI precluded (or had previously been held 

to preclude) an entire policy. 

For these reasons, I concur in affirming. 

/s/ Amy Ronayne Krause