Pellegrino v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.

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ANTOINETTE PELLEGRINO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee, and MICHAEL ANGELO MAGNOLI, EMILY ROSE PLUMER, and ERIC WILLIAM PLUMER, Defendants.

No. 355805

Court of Appeals of Michigan

June 16, 2022

UNPUBLISHED

Macomb Circuit Court LC No. 2018-001417-NI

Before: Letica, P.J., and K. F. Kelly and Riordan, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

In this first-party action under the no-fault act, MCL 500.3101 et seq., plaintiff appeals by right the trial court's judgment of no cause of action entered after a jury trial. Finding no errors warranting reversal, we affirm.

I. BASIC FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This action arises from two motor vehicle accidents in which plaintiff was involved, one on December 7, 2016, and the other on August 25, 2017. Plaintiff sought recovery of personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits from defendant State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, her no-fault insurer.^[1] Plaintiff's contention was that the December 2016 and August 2017 motor vehicle accidents caused or exacerbated injuries to her neck and back. Defendant, on the other hand, asserted that plaintiffs injures were the result of degenerative conditions, all of which predated the accidents. A jury trial was held during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, at which time several protocols were put in place to protect the participants and the jurors. Following a three-day trial, the jury found that plaintiffs injuries did not arise out of the December 2016 or August 2017 accidents. Accordingly, the trial court entered a judgment of no cause of action in favor of defendant.

Plaintiff subsequently filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) or a new trial, arguing, in relevant part that the jury's verdict was against the great weight of the evidence and that her right to a fair trial was violated by the trial court's implementation of COVID-19 protocols during trial, including the conducting of jury voir dire by Zoom, and enforcing strict social distancing and masking requirements. The trial court denied plaintiffs motion. This appeal followed.

II. EXCLUSION OF EVIDENCE

A. STANDARD OF REVIEW

"[A] trial court's decision whether to admit evidence is reviewed for an abuse of discretion, but preliminary legal determinations of admissibility are reviewed de novo." Nahshal v Freemont Ins Co, 324 Mich.App. 696, 710; 922 N.W.2d 662 (2018) (quotation marks and citation omitted). "An abuse of discretion generally occurs only when the trial court's decision is outside the range of reasonable and principled outcomes, but a court also necessarily abuses its discretion by admitting evidence that is inadmissible as a matter of law." Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted).

In addition, "[t]his Court reviews questions of statutory interpretation de novo." Herald Co, Inc v Eastern Mich. Univ Bd of Regents, 475 Mich. 463, 470; 719 N.W.2d 19 (2006). "The role of this Court in interpreting statutory language is to ascertain the legislative intent that may reasonably be inferred from the words in a statute." Mich Ass'n of Home Builders v Troy, 504 Mich. 204, 212; 934 N.W.2d 713 (2019) (quotation marks and citations omitted). "[W]here the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, the statute must be applied as written." Id. (quotation marks and citations omitted) (alteration in original).

B. ANALYSIS

Plaintiff first argues that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding evidence of, or reference to, defendant's handling of her claims. Plaintiff asserts that the evidence was relevant to (1) whether she suffered a bodily injury for which PIP benefits could be recovered under MCL 500.3105, (2) whether defendant should have paid PIP benefits for allowable expenses under MCL 500.3107(1)(a), and (3) whether defendant unreasonably refused to pay her claims, or unreasonably delayed payment of her claims, as contemplated by MCL 500.3148.^[2] We disagree.

MRE 401 defines relevant evidence as "evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence." Under MRE 402, relevant evidence is admissible, "except as otherwise provided by the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Michigan, these rules, or other rules adopted by the Supreme Court." Moreover, under MRE 402, "evidence which is not relevant is not admissible." Otherwise admissible evidence may also be excluded under MRE 403. In Morales v State Farm Mut Auto Ins Co, 279 Mich.App. 720, 730; 761 N.W.2d 454 (2008), this Court explained:

The trial court also has discretion to exclude even relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. Evidence is unfairly prejudicial when there exists a danger that marginally probative evidence will be given undue or preemptive weight by the jury. [Waknin v Chamberlain, 467 Mich. 329, 334 n 3; 653 N.W.2d 176 (2002) (quotation marks and citations omitted).]

In Douglas v Allstate Ins Co, 492 Mich. 241, 257; 821 N.W.2d 472 (2012), the Michigan Supreme Court explained that under MCL 500.3105(1), ^[3] an insurer is only liable to pay PIP benefits if two threshold "causation requirements" are met:

First, an insurer is liable only if benefits are "for accidental bodily injury . . . ." "[F]or" implies a causal connection. "[Accidental bodily injury" therefore triggers an insurer's liability and defines the scope of that liability. Accordingly, a no-fault insurer is liable to pay benefits only to the extent that the claimed benefits are causally connected to the accidental bodily injury arising out of an automobile accident.

Second, an insurer is liable to pay benefits for accidental bodily injury only if those injuries "aris[e] out of or are caused by "the ownership, operation, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. . . ." It is not any bodily injury that triggers an insurer's liability under the no-fault act. Rather, it is only those injuries that are caused by the insured's use of a motor vehicle. [Douglas, 492 Mich. at 257 (citation omitted).]

Additionally, as explained in Hamilton v AAA Mich, 248 Mich.App. 535, 543; 639 N.W.2d 837 (2001), for a no-fault insurer to be liable for a particular expense, an insured party must present evidence of the following:

(1) the expense must have been incurred by the insured, (2) the expense must have been for a product, service, or accommodation reasonably necessary for the injured person's care, recovery, or rehabilitation, and (3) the amount of the expense must have been reasonable.

In this case, the trial court's decision to exclude evidence of or reference to defendant's handling of claims in general, or plaintiffs claims specifically, did not fall outside the range of reasonable and principled outcomes. While plaintiff asserts that the evidence is relevant to (1) whether her injuries arose from the use or operation of a motor vehicle, or (2) the recovery of PIP benefits for allowable expenses under MCL 500.3107(1)(a), we agree with the trial court that evidence regarding how defendant processed plaintiffs claims for PIP benefits would not have a tendency to make it more probable or less probable that plaintiffs injuries arose from the use or operation of a motor vehicle. Therefore, the evidence would not be relevant. See MRE 401. Similarly, evidence of how plaintiffs claims were handled by defendant would not tend to show that plaintiff incurred reasonable charges for reasonably necessary services for her care, recovery, and rehabilitation. See MCL 500.3107. To the extent that plaintiff claims that the evidence of defendant's handling of her claims would have shed light on whether defendant's refusal to pay PIP benefits was unreasonable, or whether the delay in paying PIP benefits was unreasonable, this is a determination underpinning a decision whether to award no-fault attorney fees, which is an issue for the trial court to decide after a trial. See MCL 500.3148.

In support of her argument that the trial court abused its discretion when it granted defendant's motion in limine, plaintiff relies on this Court's decision in Morales. In that case, we affirmed the trial court's order admitting evidence regarding the manner in which the defendant insurer processed the plaintiffs claim for PIP benefits, holding that it was relevant to "whether the plaintiff provided [the] defendant reasonable proof of the fact and amount of the loss sustained for purpose of penalty interest under MCL 500.3142(2)." Morales, 279 Mich.App. at 731. Additionally, while the evidence was not directly relevant to the plaintiffs claim for PIP benefits, we held that it was relevant to whether the defendant fairly processed the plaintiffs claim for PIP benefits, an issue that was key to the plaintiffs theory of the case. Id.

As in Morales, the trial court instructed the jury in this case that plaintiff would be entitled to interest under the no-fault act if the payment of PIP benefits was overdue, and that plaintiff had the burden of proof with respect to whether she provided reasonable proof of loss and that the defendant failed to pay the claim within 30 days. Accordingly, even if the evidence of defendant's claims handling was not directly relevant to plaintiffs recovery of PIP benefits under MCL 500.3105 or the payment of allowable expenses under MCL 500.3107(1)(a), under Morales, it was arguably relevant to the limited issue of the recovery of interest under MCL 500.3142(2). However, because the jury found that plaintiffs injuries did not arise...