Court Opinion

ID: 9740414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:35:00.949135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:18.195945
License: Public Domain

Mackenzie, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I agree with the majority that Marks, as a person operating a repair shop, was excluded from coverage under Robinson’s policy with Transamerica. I respectfully dissent from the majority’s directions for remand.
The majority has ordered that, on remand, the circuit court shall determine whether Robinson’s primary source of recovery is his own no-fault automobile insurance carrier. I have four objections to this result.
(1) No such issue was raised by the parties.
(2) In a separate action, Robinson is suing Marks for negligence. In this action, the Ohio Casualty Insurance Company, Marks’s garage keeper’s premises liability insurance carrier, sought a declaratory judgment that Marks was an "insured” under Robinson’s no-fault automobile insurance policy and that Transamerica, the no-fault carrier, had a duty to defend Marks and aiford him coverage in the action between Robinson and Marks. The issue raised by the majority is outside the *147scope of this action and belongs in the action between Robinson and Marks.
(3) Robinson’s no-fault automobile insurance carrier is not his primary source of recovery if Robinson’s action against Marks falls within one of the exceptions to the abolition of tort liability stated in MCL 500.3135(2); MSA 24.13135(2).
(4) In Citizens Ins Co of America v Tuttle, 411 Mich 536; 309 NW2d 174 (1981), the Court held that the no-fault act did not abolish the tort liability of a defendant whose wrongful act did not involve his ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle, even though the action may have also arisen out of the plaintiffs ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle. Here, Robinson has represented to both this Court and the circuit court that his complaint against Marks alleges that the accident was caused by Robinson’s slipping on grease on the floor of Marks’s garage. If this is, in fact, the causal mechanism on which Robinson relies in his action against Marks, then Robinson’s action against Marks falls within the rule stated in Tuttle, and Marks’s loading of Robinson’s motor vehicle at the time of the accident is merely a fortuitous coincidence of no relevance. Robinson’s no-fault automobile insurance carrier is not his primary source of recovery if Tuttle allows him to recover damages in a negligence action against Marks.
Because this case was before the circuit court on cross motions for summary judgment, I would reverse and remand the case for entry of an order of summary judgment for Transamerica.