Court Opinion

ID: 9741453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:55:52.468562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:24.203790
License: Public Domain

Beasley, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent.
It is clear that once the workers’ compensation carrier is allowed to intervene under GCR 1963, 209, the apportionment of expenses cannot be made by the trial court until after there has been *186a recovery.1 But, prior to allowing the carrier to intervene, the trial court can exercise its discretion and condition intervention on the sharing of the costs and risks of litigation. In this case, the trial court properly did not permit intervening appellant, Travelers Insurance Company, to sit back and wait for plaintiff to prepare the case for trial and then to intervene and reap the benefits of plaintiffs preparation expenses.
Plaintiff, Mary Lou Mason, was required to expend over $4,000 in costs of preparation for trial. In addition, plaintiff is obligated to her counsel under a contingent fee agreement. Travelers waited for over a year from the time plaintiff filed the suit before seeking to intervene. Under these circumstances, the trial court had discretion to spell out equitable conditions under which Travelers could intervene into plaintiffs case.
There are two sources that justify the exercise of discretion by the trial court in this case. First, the right to intervene under MCL 418.827(1); MSA 17.237(827X1) is not unconditional. In Harrison v Ford Motor Co,2 the Michigan Supreme Court expressly held that the right of the insurer to intervene as a party plaintiff was not absolute. While this case could be limited to its unique facts where the insurer had an interest in both sides of the litigation, it should not be so narrowly limited. A United States District Court, in applying Michigan law, used the Harrison decision to limit an insurer’s right to intervene with full participatory rights as a party plaintiff where the insurer did not have an interest in both sides of the litigation.3
*187Thus, a trial court can properly limit, or condition, the intervention of an insurer exercising its "right to join” provided in MCL 418.827(1); MSA 17.237(827)(1). Therefore, the proper court rule to apply is GCR 1963, 209.2, now MCR 2.209(B), since the statutory right to intervene involved in this case is conditional, not unconditional, as required by GCR 1963, 209.1(1), now MCR 2.209(A)(1). Under GCR 1963, 209.2, intervention is permissive, and the trial court has a great deal of discretion in granting or denying such intervention. The trial judge in the within case did not abuse his discretion or violate Travelers’s statutory right to intervention by imposing equitable conditions upon its exercise.
But even if Travelers’s right to intervene is "unconditional” for purposes of the court rules and GCR 1963, 209.1(1) applies, the second source of trial court discretion would allow the court to place conditions on Travelers’s right to intervene. This second source of court discretion is based on the lack of timeliness in Travelers’s assertion of its right to intervene. GCR 1963, 209.1(1) was modeled after the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure on intervention,4 except that it did not, in so many words, include the federal rule requirement of timely application. In addition, the new MCR 2.209(A)(1), which replaces GCR 1963, 209.1(1), now includes a requirement of timely application. Consequently, it has been contended that GCR 1963, 209.1 did not require timely application. However, for consideration of pragmatism and equity, there must be some point at which a prospective intervenor, even under GCR 1963, 209.1, will have lost his right of intervention if he has delayed unreasonably.
There are no cases squarely addressing this *188issue of trial court discretion when the application for intervention under GCR 1963, 209.1(1) is substantially untimely and tardy. Many cases in this Court have held that the trial court does have discretion on whether to allow a late intervenor as of right to enter a case under GCR 1963, 209.1(3), which expressly requires timely application.5 Although GCR 1963, 209.1(1) does not expressly require timely application, the trial court must be allowed, at some point, to limit intervention which would unfairly allow an insurer to sit back for a period of over a year while the plaintiff incurs substantial time and expense in preparation for litigation. The trial judge is not required to allow an insurer to intervene at the last minute and share in all the gains of the plaintiff’s expenses and efforts or walk away completely free if the plaintiff fails to recover.
In fact, the possibility of unfair, risk-free intervention a year down the road from the start of costly litigation justifies a trial court’s application of equitable conditions to the intervention. Cases such as this, in which the statutory right to intervene is exercised, will necessarily vary greatly. The time of the attempt to intervene, promptness of investigation, the nature of damages, and other factors will enter into the question of whether conditions need to be attached to intervention. Such matters are best reviewed within the factual context of a particular case by exercise of the trial judge’s discretion.
The right to intervene under GCR 1963, 290.1 or 209.2 is not unconditional. In this case, I do not consider that the trial court has violated Travelers’s statutory right to intervene by imposing con*189ditions upon its exercise. No abuse of discretion occurred here.

 MCL418.827(6); MSA 17.237(827X6); Glavin v Baker Material Handling Corp, 132 Mich App 318; 347 NW2d 222 (1984), remanded on other grounds 422 Mich 882 (1985).

 370 Mich 683; 122 NW2d 680 (1963).

 Harris v General Coach Works, 37 FRD 343 (ED Mich, 1964).

 FR Civ P, 24(a).

 See Dudkin v Civil Service Comm, 127 Mich App 397, 404; 339 NW2d 190 (1983); American States Ins Co v Albin, 118 Mich Appp 201, 209; 324 NW2d 574 (1982), lv den 417 Mich 955 (1983).