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

Heading: progressive

Text: By age 26, Ryan DeYoung had accumulated three drunk-driving convictions, which resulted in the repeated loss of his valid driver’s license beginning at age 17. Ryan’s wife, Nicole DeYoung, owned and insured the family’s four vehicles with Progressive Marathon Insurance Company. Ryan was a named excluded driver on the Progressive policy. As a result, Nicole expressly prohibited Ryan from driving the vehicles, including the 2001 Oldsmobile Bravada that she used as her principal vehicle. On the night of September 17, 2008, Ryan came home intoxicated and without his house key. He banged on the window of their home. Nicole rose from her bed, admitted him, and, perceiving his intoxicated state, went back to bed. Ryan took the key to the Bravada out of Nicole’s purse and then took the vehicle, contrary to Nicole’s standing instructions and without her permission. 12 Spectrum, unpub op at 3-4. 13 Spectrum Health Hosps v Farm Bureau Mut Ins Co of Mich, 490 Mich 869 (2011). 7 Within 20 minutes of taking Nicole’s vehicle, Ryan was badly injured in a singlecar accident. He incurred bills of more than $53,000 at Spectrum Health Hospitals and another $232,000 at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital. Progressive denied PIP benefits, arguing that Ryan had been injured while using a vehicle that he had unlawfully taken. It commenced a declaratory action against Ryan and Nicole on this basis. Spectrum Health and Mary Free Bed intervened as cross-plaintiffs to recover payment from Progressive for the outstanding bills. Spectrum Health and Mary Free Bed also filed a claim with the Michigan Assigned Claims Facility, which designated Citizens Insurance Company of America to respond to Ryan’s claim. Citizens also denied coverage, and Progressive named Citizens as a cross-defendant in this lawsuit. Progressive moved for summary disposition, contending that at the time of the accident Ryan was using a motor vehicle that he had taken unlawfully and without a reasonable belief that he was entitled to do so, which precluded him from receiving PIP benefits under MCL 500.3113(a). The circuit court granted summary disposition to both Progressive and Citizens, ruling that although the Court of Appeals decisions recognizing and applying the family-joyriding exception were binding precedent, none had extended the exception to a case in which the family member was a named excluded driver on the underlying no-fault policy. The circuit court concluded that “[t]o further extend the ‘joyriding’ exception so as to overturn excluded driver provisions is to increase the risk in all such policies, and may result in good drivers with uninsurable family members (due to excessive risk associated with poor driving records) becoming uninsurable themselves.” The circuit court concluded that it would “not engage in such rewriting of private contracts.” 8 The Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that it had no alternative but to follow the binding precedent of prior Court of Appeals decisions recognizing and applying the family-joyriding exception to the disqualification from coverage of MCL 500.3113(a).14 We granted Spectrum Health and Mary Free Bed’s application for leave to appeal, requesting that the parties address (1) whether an immediate family member who knows that he or she has been forbidden to drive a vehicle, and has been named in the no-fault insurance policy applicable to the vehicle as an excluded driver, but who nevertheless operates the vehicle and sustains personal injury in an accident while doing so, comes within the so-called “family joyriding exception” to MCL 500.3113(a); and (2) if so, whether the “family joyriding exception” should be limited or overruled.[15]