Court Opinion

ID: 9671742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:42:48.875251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:11.795870
License: Public Domain

Cavanagh, J.
(dissenting). The majority holds that an employee’s personal no-fault insurance carrier is liable for no-fault benefits when the employee is injured while occupying an employer-owned motor vehicle that is not required to be registered in this state or subject to the state’s mandatory security provisions under the no-fault act. I dissent from this holding because the unambiguous language of the priority provisions of the no-fault act evinces a legislative intent to hold an employer’s insurer primarily liable for personal protection insurance benefits when an employee is injured while occupying a motor vehicle owned or registered by his employer. Since Roadway, the injured employee’s employer, is self-insured, Roadway should be held liable for the payment of plaintiff’s personal protection insurance benefits.
i
The no-fault act specifies the order of priority between insurers to pay personal protection insurance benefits. Section 3114 of the act establishes this priority:
(1) Except as provided in subsections (2), (3), and *212(5), a personal protection insurance policy described in section 3101(1) applies to accidental bodily injury to the person named in the policy, the person’s spouse, and a relative of either domiciled in the same household, if the injury arises from a motor vehicle accident. . . .
(2) [Addresses motor vehicles transporting passengers; not relevant here.]
(3) An employee, his or her spouse, or a relative of either domiciled in the same household, who suffers accidental bodily injury while an occupant of a motor vehicle owned or registered by the employer, shall receive personal protection insurance benefits to which the employee is entitled from the insurer of the furnished vehicle.
(4) Except as provided in subsections (1) to (3), a person suffering accidental bodily injury arising from a motor vehicle accident while an occupant of a motor vehicle shall claim personal protection insurance benefits from insurers in the following order of priority:
(a) The insurer of the owner or registrant of the vehicle occupied.
(b) The insurer of the operator of the vehicle occupied.
(5) [Addresses motorcycle operators or passengers; not relevant here.] [MCL 500.3114; MSA 24.13114.]
The personal protection insurance policy described in § 3101(1) refers to the mandatory security requirement for an owner or registrant of a motor vehicle required to be registered in this state. MCL 500.3101(1); MSA 24.1310K1).1 Hence, §§ 3101(1) and 3114 establish, as a general rule of priority, that one’s personal no-fault insurer is *213liable for benefits for all injuries arising out of the use of any motor vehicle by the named insured. However, § 3114(2), (3), and (5) are exceptions to this general rule. Subsection (3) is relevant to the facts of this case. To repeat, this subsection provides as follows:
An employee, his or her spouse, or a relative of either domiciled in the same household, who suffers accidental bodily injury while an occupant of a motor vehicle owned or registered by the employer, shall receive personal protection insurance benefíts to which the employee is entitled from the insurer of the furnished vehicle. [Emphasis added.]
Pursuant to the unambiguous language of this subsection, an employee need only show that he was injured while occupying a motor vehicle owned or registered by his employer in order to recover benefits from his employer’s insurer. The plain language of the statute does not require that the employer’s motor vehicle be registered in this state or subject to the state’s mandatory security provisions under the no-fault act. Furthermore, as defined in the act, a motor vehicle does not have to be registered in this state:
"Motor vehicle” means a vehicle, including a trailer, operated or designed for operation upon a public highway by power other than muscular power which has more than 2 wheels. [MCL 500.3101(2)(c); MSA 24.13101(2)(c).]
Where, as here, "the Legislature uses certain and unambiguous language, the plain meaning of the statute must be followed.” Browder v Int’l Fidelity Ins Co, 413 Mich 603, 611; 321 NW2d 668 (1982), citing Grand Rapids v Crocker, 219 Mich 178, 182; 188 NW 221 (1922); Dussia v Monroe Co *214Employees Retirement System, 386 Mich 244, 248; 191 NW2d 307 (1971); 2A Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction (4th ed), §§ 46.01 and 46.04. The certain and unambiguous language of § 3114(1) and (3) establishes that the Legislature intended that the insurers of employers be liable for personal protection insurance benefits when an employee is injured while occupying an employer-owned or registered motor vehicle. Unlike the majority, I do not believe that the Legislature intended that an employer’s insurer’s liability for no-fault benefits be conditioned upon the employer’s vehicle being registered in this state or subject to this state’s mandatory security provisions.
ii
We have previously held that an employee can recover no-fault benefits from a self-insured employer when the employee is injured in the employer’s vehicle despite the exclusivity provision in the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act. Mathis v Interstate Motor Freight, 408 Mich 164, 175; 289 NW2d 708 (1980). In Lee v DAIIE, 412 Mich 505, 516; 315 NW2d 413 (1982), we held that an employee’s personal no-fault insurer may be liable for no-fault benefits when the employer’s vehicle is uninsured. Our holding in Lee was specifically limited to the facts of that case, which involved an uninsured motor vehicle. Furthermore, in concluding that the sections of the no-fault act requiring certain vehicles to be insured have nothing to do with those sections setting forth whether benefits are payable and which insurer is liable, we stated the following:

There is no language qualifying the right to beneñts or the insurer’s duty to pay them with a 
*215
requirement that such motor vehicle be a "registered,” "insured,” or "covered” motor vehicle as indeed might easily have been done had the Legislature so intended. The requirement is merely that the vehicle involved be a "motor vehicle” used, maintained, operated or owned "as a motor vehicle.”

We are not left to speculate about whether the Legislature intended the expression "motor vehicle” to mean a covered or registered or insured motor vehicle when it used those words as an expression of art throughout the statute. The meaning of that expression is explicitly set down in the definitional section of the act, § 3102(2)(c) ....
Conspicuously absent is any language limiting "motor vehicle” to one required to be registered in the state or for which no-fault security must be maintained.4
4 It is interesting to note that while mopeds, like other categories of vehicles . . . are not required to be no-fault covered because under MCL 257.216; MSA 9.1916 they are not required to be registered in the State of Michigan, the section defining "motor vehicle” in the no-fault act, § 3101(2)(c), specifically and separately excludes motorcycles and mopeds, but not the others. That fact, we think, adds further weight to the point that the Legislature intended that the kinds of vehicles which constitute "motor vehicles” under the beneñt payment provisions of the act and the kinds of vehicles which must be registered and covered under a no-fault policy are separate subjects.
[412 Mich 512-513. Emphasis added.]
A consistent reading of both Mathis and Lee establishes the rule that where there is no insurer of an employer’s vehicle, the no-fault insurer of the injured employee’s personal automobile may be liable for payment of personal protection insurance benefits. However, where the employer’s vehicle is insured, the employer’s insurer is liable for the payment of personal protection insurance ben*216efits. Since Roadway self-insured the trailer upon which plaintiff was injured, § 3114(3) would apply, and Roadway, rather than daiie, is liable for the payment of plaintiff’s personal protection insurance benefits.
Conclusion
This analysis furthers the legislative purposes in enacting the no-fault act. Where an employer’s vehicle is uninsured, the employee’s personal insurer is liable for the payment of benefits, thus giving effect to the broad purpose of the no-fault act "to provide benefits whenever, as a general proposition, an insured is injured in a motor vehicle accident, whether or not a registered or covered motor vehicle is involved . . . .” Lee, supra, 515. When an employer has insured a motor vehicle, the employer’s insurer is liable for the payment of benefits, thus giving effect to the priority established by the Legislature in § 3114(1) and (3). For these reasons, I would affirm the Court of Appeals reversal of the trial court.
Archer, J., concurred with Cavanagh, J.
Levin, J.
Wayne Parks was injured while working in a trailer owned by his employer, Roadway Express, Inc. The parties are in agreement that Parks is entitled to receive personal protection (no-fault) benefits pursuant to § 3107 of the no-fault automobile liability act.1
The question presented is whether such benefits are payable by Detroit Automobile Inter-Insurance Exchange, the insurer of Parks’ personal automobile, or by Roadway Express, his self-insured em*217ployer, or by an insurer assigned by the Assigned Claims Facility.2
Section 3114 of the no-fault act provides that a no-fault insurance policy applies to accidental bodily injury to the person named in the policy, but that an employee who suffers accidental bodily injury while an occupant of "a motor vehicle owned or registered by the employer, shall receive personal protection insurance benefits to which the employee is entitled from the insurer of the furnished vehicle.”3 (Emphasis supplied.)
The trailer was not registered or required to be registered by Roadway because Roadway is a foreign corporation, and such an owner or registrant of a motor vehicle is not required to register it if it is operated in this state — as was the trailer — for less than thirty days in any calendar year.4
Roadway Express, pursuant to § 3101(4) of the no-fault act, had qualified as a self-insured.5
i
Roadway Express, and the majority, would read the term "owner or registrant of a motor vehicle” as meaning "owner or registrant of a motor vehicle required to be registered in this state,”6 viewing the omission of the words "required to be *218registered in this state” in § 3114 and other sections of the act where the words "owner or registrant” appear7 as intending no change in meaning, but rather as a shorthand version of the full expression.
I agree with daiie, the Department of State (on behalf of the Assigned Claims Facility), and Justice Cavanagh that the term "owner or registrant of [a] motor vehicle,” as used in § 3114, is not qualified by the concept "required to be registered in this state.”
A
While either construction of the act is maintainable, I reach this conclusion because I think it is more consonant with a reading of the act as a whole.
The act provides that a person is not entitled to no-fault benefits in three circumstances: (1) where the person was using a vehicle he had taken tmlawfully, (2) where the person was the owner or registrant of a motor vehicle involved in the accident with respect to which no-fault insurance or security was not in effect, or (3) where the person was "not a resident of this state, was an occupant of a motor vehicle not registered in this state and was not insured by an insurer which has filed a certification in compliance with section 3163.”8
Section 3163 provides that an insurer authorized to transact automobile liability insurance and personal and property protection (no-fault) insurance in this state shall be subject to the personal and property protection (no-fault) insurance system set forth in the no-fault act in respect to a motor *219vehicle owned, operated, maintained, or used by an out-of-state resident insured by the insurer.9
The Legislature thus indicated an intention that an insurer who has been authorized to write no-fault insurance in this state shall provide no-fault benefits in respect to vehicles not registered in this state operated by out-of-state residents. Nonresident occupants of a motor vehicle not registered in this state are generally entitled to no-fault benefits from the insurer of the out-of-state vehicle.
B
The concept "owned or registered” is repeated in the priority sections of the act applicable, for example, where the injured person does not have a policy of no-fault insurance. The priority sections of the act provide that, in such a case, a person suffering accidental bodily injury shall first claim no-fault benefits from the "insurer of the owner or *220registrant of the vehicle” occupied10 by the injured person or, where not an occupant, of the vehicle involved in the accident,11 before claiming insurance benefits from the operator of the vehicle occupied or involved in the accident.
Reading the expression "owned or registered” as qualified by the concept "required to be registered” would mean that an insurer of an out-of-state vehicle who had complied with § 3163 would not be subject to liability for the payment of no-fault benefits to a pedestrian who did not have his own no-fault insurance and who was struck by the out-of-state vehicle which it had insured. This might mean that in such a case an insurer assigned by the Assigned Claims Facility rather than the insurer of the out-of-state vehicle would be responsible for the payment of no-fault benefits. That does not appear to be consonant with the apparent purpose of § 3163 to subject insurers of out-of-state vehicles who are authorized to transact automobile insurance in this state to liability for the payment of no-fault benefits in general as if the vehicle had been registered and insured for no-fault benefits. I see no basis, consistent with § 3163, for differentiating the liability of insurers depending on whether an insured vehicle was or was not registered in this state.
ii
It is asserted, however, that § 3163 does not govern in the instant case because Roadway Express is self-insured and is not an insurer authorized to transact automobile insurance. Roadway Express qualified as a self-insured pursuant to *221§ 3101(4) of the no-fault act,12 and the Department of State issued a certificate of self-insurance stating that the certificate "covers all vehicles owned by Roadway.” Presumably, Roadway had at least one vehicle registered in Michigan or it would not have qualified as a self-insured and obtained such certificate.13 It was, in that sense, like an insurance company that had obtained authorization to transact automobile insurance in this state because it wished to write insurance covering one or more vehicles.
The stated purpose of § 3101(4) is to subject self-insurers to "all the obligations and rights of an insurer under this chapter.” "[TJhis [the no-fault] chapter” does not purport to provide for obligations and rights of insurers who are not authorized to transact automobile insurance in this state. Since the no-fault chapter does not provide for obligations and rights of an insurer not so authorized to transact insurance business in this state, I would read the expression "all the obligations and rights of an insurer under this chapter” as meaning all the obligations and rights as an insurer authorized to transact automobile insurance in *222this state, and, thus, as including the obligations of an insurer under § 3163.
Further, it would not, again, be consonant with the objectives of the act to construe it as providing that a self-insured person has less responsibility than an insurer, and to in effect transfer from a self-insured to insurers, such as, in this case, Parks’ insurer (daiie) or an insurer assigned by the Assigned Claims Facility, responsibility that an insurer of the vehicle would have if it were insured rather than self-insured.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

 Section 3101(1) provides that "[t]he owner or registrant of a motor vehicle required to be registered in this state shall maintain security for payment of benefits under personal protection insurance, property protection insurance, and residual liability insurance. Security shall be in effect continuously during the period of registration of the motor vehicle.”

 MCL 500.3107; MSA 24.13107.

 MCL 500.3171; MSA 24.13171.

 MCL 500.3114(3); MSA 24.13114(3).

 MCL 500.3102; MSA 24.13102.

 MCL 500.3101(4); MSA 24.13101(4).

 The owner or registrant of a motor vehicle required to be registered in this state shall maintain security for payment of benefits under personal protection insurance, property protection insurance, and residual liability insurance. Security shall be in effect continuously during the period of registration of the motor vehicle. [MCL 500.3101(1); MSA 24.13101(1). Emphasis supplied.]

 See ns 10 and 11 and accompanying text.

 MCL 500.3113(c); MSA 24.13113(c).

 (1) An insurer authorized to transact automobile liability insurance and personal and property protection insurance in this state shall file and maintain a written certification that any accidental bodily injury or property damage occurring in this state arising from the ownership, operation, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle as a motor vehicle by an out-of-state resident who is insured under its automobile liability insurance policies, shall be subject to the personal and property protection insurance system set forth in this act.
(2) A nonadmitted insurer may voluntarily file the certification described in subsection (1).
(3) When a certification filed under subsections (1) or (2) applies to accidental bodily injury or property damage, the insurer and its insureds with respect to that injury or damage have the rights and immunities under this act for personal and property protection insureds, and claimants have the rights and benefits of personal and property protection insurance claimants, including the right to receive benefits from the electing insurer as if it were an insurer of personal and property protection insurance applicable to the accidental bodily injury or property damage. [MCL 500.3163; MSA 24.13163.]

 MCL 500.3114; MSA 24.13114.

 MCL 500.3115; MSA 24.13115.

 (4) Security required by subsection (1) may be provided by any other method approved by the secretary of state as affording security equivalent to that afforded by a policy of insurance, if proof of the security is filed and continuously maintained with the secretary of state throughout the registration period. The person filing the security has all the obligations and rights of an insurer under this chapter. When the context permits, "insurer” as used in this chapter, includes any person filing the security as provided in this section. [MCL 500.3101(4); MSA 24.13101(4).]

 Roadway’s application for self-insured status sworn to August 1, 1980, showed that it had 626 motor vehicles registered in Michigan. The "conditions for qualifying as a self-insurer with the Secretary of State” provide that an applicant must have "at least 26 motor vehicles to be registered in Michigan.”