Opinion ID: 824276
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: spectrum health

Text: PIP claimant Craig Smith, Jr. (Craig Jr.), was injured in a single-car accident that occurred while he was driving a vehicle owned by his father, Craig Smith, Sr. (Craig Sr.), and insured by Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company of Michigan. Craig Sr. had forbidden Craig Jr. to operate the vehicle because he had no valid driver’s license. Craig Jr. acknowledged that he knew he was forbidden to operate the vehicle. Craig Sr. entrusted the vehicle to Craig Jr.’s girlfriend, Kathleen Chirco, to enable Craig Jr. and Kathleen to perform landscaping services. Nevertheless, Craig Sr. instructed Kathleen, in Craig Jr.’s presence, that she was not to allow Craig Jr. to drive it. That night, Craig Jr. began drinking and asked Kathleen for the keys to Craig Sr.’s vehicle. Although she initially resisted, Kathleen eventually gave him the keys, and he later crashed the vehicle into a tree. Craig Jr. pleaded no contest to operating while intoxicated causing serious injury, MCL 257.625, and was sentenced to a minimum of 2½ years in prison. Spectrum Health Hospitals, which rendered care to Craig Jr., brought suit against Farm Bureau to recover payment for those services and subsequently moved for summary disposition. Farm Bureau opposed Spectrum Health’s motion and took the position that Craig Jr. was not entitled to PIP benefits because the vehicle he was using had been taken unlawfully. The circuit court granted summary disposition in favor of Spectrum Health, ruling that Kathleen had been empowered to permit Craig Jr. to operate the vehicle. The 6 Court of Appeals affirmed, applying the chain-of-permissive-use theory from Bronson to conclude that Craig Jr. had not taken the vehicle unlawfully.12 This Court granted Farm Bureau’s application for leave to appeal, requesting the parties to address whether an immediate family member who knows that he or she has been forbidden to drive a vehicle may nevertheless be a permissive user of the vehicle eligible for [PIP] benefits under MCL 500.3113(a) when, contrary to the owner’s prohibition, an intermediate permissive user grants the [PIP] claimant permission to operate the accident vehicle.[13]