Citizens Ins. Co. of America v. Tuttle

• Decision Date: 24 August 1981
• Docket Number: No. 5,Docket No. 65132,5
• Citation: 411 Mich. 536,309 N.W.2d 174
• Parties: CITIZENS INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA, Zaiger Beverage Company, and Edgar Schaedig, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Donald TUTTLE, Defendant-Appellee. Calendar
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 174

309 N.W.2d 174

411 Mich. 536

CITIZENS INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA, Zaiger Beverage Company, and Edgar Schaedig, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Donald TUTTLE, Defendant-Appellee.

Docket No. 65132.

Calendar No. 5.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Aug. 24, 1981.

Gary L. Olsen, Escanaba, for plaintiffs/appellants.

Davis & Olsen Law Office, Escanaba, Nebel & Revord Law Office, Raoul D. Revord, Munising, for defendant-appellee.

Lopatin, Miller, Freedman, Bluestone, Erlich & Rosen by Steven G. Silverman, Detroit, brief on behalf of amicus curiae, Michigan Trial Lawyers Association.

LEVIN, Justice.

The question presented is whether the provision of the no-fault act which abolishes certain tort liability relieves a non-motorist tortfeasor of liability for losses arising from a motor vehicle accident caused by his lack of care. We hold that it does not.

Edgar Schaedig was driving a truck owned by Zaiger Beverage Company when he collided with defendant Donald Tuttle's cow, which was running loose on the highway. The truck jackknifed and ran into a ditch. ¹

Citizens Insurance Company of America, the insurer of the truck, paid Zaiger Beverage for the cost of repairing extensive damage to the truck and became subrogated to its claims against Tuttle. Citizens Insurance filed this action against Tuttle to recover the amounts paid, on the ground that Tuttle was at fault in failing to keep the cow properly fenced in. This appeal involves only the question of Tuttle's liability for the damage to the truck. ²

The trial court granted Tuttle's motion for summary judgment, on the ground that any tort liability arising out of the accident had been abolished by the no-fault motor vehicle liability act. ³ The Court of Appeals, 96 Mich.App. 763, 294 N.W.2d 224, one judge dissenting, affirmed. We reverse and remand for trial. The tort liability abolished by the no-fault act is only such liability as arises out of the defendant's ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle, not liability which arises out of other conduct, such as the negligent keeping of cattle.

I

Section 3135, which provides for the abolition of tort liability, states:

"(1) A person remains subject to tort liability for noneconomic loss caused by his or her ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle only if the injured person has suffered death, serious impairment of body function, or permanent serious disfigurement.

"(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, tort liability arising from the ownership, maintenance, or use within this state of a motor vehicle with respect to which the security required by section 3101(3) and (4) was in effect is abolished except as to:

"(a) Intentionally caused harm to persons or property. Even though a person knows that harm to persons or property is substantially certain to be caused by his or her act or omission, the person does not cause or suffer such harm intentionally if he or she acts or refrains from acting for the purpose of averting injury to any person, including himself or herself, or for the purpose of averting damage to tangible property.

"(b) Damages for noneconomic loss as provided and limited in subsection (1).

"(c) Damages for allowable expenses, work loss, and survivor's loss as defined in sections 3107 to 3110 in excess of the daily, monthly, and 3-year limitations contained in those sections. The party liable for damages is entitled to an exemption reducing his or her liability by the amount of taxes that would have been payable on account of income the injured person would have received if he or she had not been injured." M.C.L. § 500.3135; M.S.A. § 24.13135. ⁴

The Court of Appeals noted that, in contrast to subsection (1) of § 3135, subsection (2) fails to specify whether only tort liability arising out of a defendant's ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle was abolished or whether the tort liability which was abolished includes liability arising out of an accident involving only a plaintiff's ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle and caused by tortious conduct of a non-motorist defendant. The Court concluded, in light of the act's purpose to eliminate fault determinations, that "aside from the enumerated exceptions, tort liability is to be precluded whenever an automobile is involved in any way."

We conclude, however, that the no-fault act was not intended to work a comprehensive abolition of all tort liability incident to a motor vehicle accident.

Subsection (2) abolishes "tort liability arising from the ownership, maintenance, or use within this state of a motor vehicle." Injuries to persons or property arising from a motor vehicle collision do not give rise to tort liability unless the injury is caused by a wrongful act of commission or omission. Absent a wrongful act, the collision is simply an accident for the consequences of which no one is liable in tort. Tort liability thus arises, in the normal sense of those words, from some wrongful act of the liable party.

In the instant case, the wrongful act asserted is Tuttle's improper keeping of his cow. Such a wrongful act does not relate to the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. Tuttle's tort liability, if any, arose only from his alleged wrongful keeping of the cow, not from the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle.

Tuttle would have been subject to tort liability for his wrongful keeping of a cow whether it collided with a motor vehicle, trampled a rose garden, or walked through a plate glass window. His tort liability in the instant case no more "arose from" the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle than it would have "arisen from" the ownership, maintenance or use of a rose garden or a plate glass window. It arose solely from the wrongful keeping of a cow.

The no-fault act is a system of compensating injuries and damages incurred in accidents caused by motor vehicles. Compensation is due without regard to fault, and the tort system for adjudicating fault was partially abolished. In the context of the no-fault act, therefore, the abolition of "tort liability arising from the ownership, maintenance, or use * * * of a motor vehicle" carries the implicit sense of tort liability for injuries or damage caused by the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle.

Only persons who own, maintain or use motor vehicles can be subject to tort liability for injuries or damage caused by the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. The non-motorist tortfeasor cannot be subject to tort liability for injuries or damage caused by the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. The abolition of tort liability for injuries or damage caused by (arising from) the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle, therefore, does not abolish the tort liability of the non-motorist tortfeasor.

The foregoing construction of subsection (2), based on the language used and the no-fault concept, is in accord with the meaning which the drafters of the Uniform Motor Vehicle Accident Reparations Act ("UMVARA"), one of the model acts utilized as source material in the drafting of the no-fault act, intended to convey by the use of identical language in the model act. Section 5(a) of UMVARA provides, with exceptions not at issue here, that "(t)ort liability with respect to accidents occurring in this state and arising from the ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle is abolished." 14 U.L.A., Civil Procedural and Remedial Laws, p. 63. The comment to § 5 states:

"(T)he only tort actions which are abolished are those which arise from the defendant's ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle. Among the potential tort actions thus retained by an automobile accident victim would be those against an automobile manufacturer for products liability or against a railroad in the case of an automobile-train collision." Id., p. 65 (emphasis supplied).

It is probable that the Legislature, in using the language of the model act, intended the meaning ascribed to that language by the drafters of the model act, particularly where that meaning is the most natural sense of the language used.

Moreover, subsection (2) abolishes tort liability arising from the ownership, maintenance or use only of vehicles for which the required no-fault insurance or other security has been obtained. The policy apparently expressed in so conditioning the abolition of tort liability upon the obtaining of no-fault coverage is that a person is to be relieved of tort liability only upon participating, through the payment of premiums, in a system for spreading the costs of compensating vehicular injuries without regard to fault. ⁵ To extend the abolition of tort liability to non-motorist tortfeasors would be to incorporate into the no-fault system the costs of providing personal protection insurance benefits to motorists, passengers and pedestrians injured by non-motorist tortfeasors without incorporating offsetting premiums from non-motorist tortfeasors, since non-motorist tortfeasors are not required to purchase no-fault insurance with respect to their conduct as non-motorists.

Such extension would give a broader effect to § 3135's abolition of tort liability than would be given its requirement that no-fault insurance be in effect. To the extent that the abolition of tort liability is broader than the requirement of no-fault coverage, the policy of limiting tort immunity to those who have participated in the spreading of the costs of motor vehicle accident compensation would be defeated. The non-motorist tortfeasor is the equivalent of the uninsured motorist and should be treated similarly. Both are outside the basic no-fault system of allocating the costs of accidents and both remain subject to tort liability. ⁶

II

This construction of the abolition of tort liability intended by subsection (2), in addition to appearing directly from the language and antecedents of the section, also...