Court Opinion

ID: 9702604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:18:30.678027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:39.512163
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur in the majority’s resolution of the question "whether a person working less than full-time is 'temporarily unemployed’ as that term is used in MCL 500.3107a; MSA 24.13107(1) . . . ." Ante, p 463..
I write separately because I do not agree with the'majority’s resolution of the question "whether a claimant may subtract the amount of attorney fees paid to secure an award of social security disability benefits from the amount of those benefits subject to setoff pursuant to MCL 500.3109(1); MSA 24.13109a).”1 Id., p 463.
*479The "American rule” that "attorney fees are not ordinarily recoverable unless a statute, court rule, or common-law exception provides to the contrary,”2 would be applicable if Edward Popma, Jr., were seeking to recover attorney fees incurred in the prosecution of this litigation against Auto Club Insurance Association.
The question presented is not whether attorney fees are recoverable in an action between a no-fault insured and a no-fault insurer, but rather whether, when the Social Security Administration or, in another case, a worker’s compensation insurer, rejects a no-fault insured’s claim for benefits, "[b]enefits provided or required to be provided”3 means the gross amount of benefits that a court or tribunal ultimately requires to be paid, or the amount actually provided and received by the no-fault insured net of the reasonable cost of recovery. That is a question of statutory construction, and the American rule is not applicable.4 I would hold that in such a case, "[b]enefits provided or required to be provided” means the amount actually provided and received by the no-fault insured net of the reasonable cost of recovery.
In Perez v State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins Co, 418 Mich 634; 344 NW2d 773 (1984), this Court held that benefits required to be paid to a worker injured in a motor vehicle accident as worker’s compensation, but which would not be paid be*480cause the employer did not have worker’s compensation coverage, are not required to be subtracted from no-fault work-loss benefits. The lead opinion stated:
Amounts payable as workers’ compensation benefits that will not be paid to an injured worker because his employer failed to obtain workers’ compensation coverage cannot duplicate no-fault work-loss benefits and are not required to be subtracted from no-fault work-loss benefits.[5] There cannot be a duplicative recovery where only a single recovery is available.[6] [Id., p 641.]
Recently in Smith v Physicians Health Plan, Inc, 444 Mich 743, 746; 514 NW2d 150 (1994), this Court held, "as a matter of contract interpretation,” that a no-fault insurer who has elected uncoordinated benefits under a no-fault policy is not entitled to receive duplicate payment for medical expense from a health insurer where the health insurer’s policy contains a coordination of benefits clause.
I agree with the majority that
[t]he mandatory setoff of benefits provided, or required to be provided, by state or federal law is intended to prevent the recovery of benefits that duplicate benefits provided by the no-fault insurer, thereby preventing a double recovery. Jarosz v DAIIE, 418 Mich 565, 577; 345 NW2d 563 (1984); O’Donnell v State Farm Mutual Ins Co, 404 Mich 524, 544-545; 273 NW2d 829 (1979). [Ante, pp 476-477.]
*481There is no duplicate recovery by a no-fault insured to the extent he incurs reasonable attorney fees to recover social security benefits or, in another case, worker’s compensation benefits.
The majority appears to assume that Popma or his lawyer failed to avail themselves of an opportunity to obtain an award of attorney fees paid by the federal government. If that is so, I might agree with the majority, but I would not indulge that assumption absent record evidence that Popma or his lawyer failed to avail themselves of payment of the lawyer’s fee by the federal government. It would be appropriate to remand for a factual determination.
Mallett, J., concurred with Levin, J.

 Benefits provided or required to be provided under the laws of any state or the federal government shall be subtracted from *479the personal protection insurance benefits otherwise payable for the injury. [MCL 500.3109(1); MSA 24.13109(1).]

 Ante, p 474.

 See n 1.

 I agree with the majority, because the issue should be resolved as a matter of statutory construction, in rejecting Popma’s argument that he should be reimbursed for the attorney fees, as an exception to the American rule, out of the “common fund” created when he was awarded social security benefits.

 O’Donnell v State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins Co, 404 Mich 524, 544; 273 NW2d 829 (1979); Jarosz v DAIIE, 418 Mich 565, 574-575; 345 NW2d 563 (1984). But see Jarosz v DAIIE, supra, p 592, n 13 (Levin, J., dissenting).

 See Davis v Auto-Owners Ins Co, 116 Mich App 402, 414; 323 NW2d 418 (1982) (quoting Perez v State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins Co, 105 Mich App 202, 208; 306 NW2d 451 [1981] [Burns, J., dissenting]).