Copus v. Meemic Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 15 February 2011
• Docket Number: Docket No. 295499.
• Citation: 805 N.W.2d 623,291 Mich.App. 593
• Parties: COPUS v. MEEMIC INSURANCE COMPANY.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

291 Mich.App. 593

805 N.W.2d 623

COPUS

v.MEEMIC INSURANCE COMPANY.

Docket No. 295499.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted Feb. 9, 2011, at Detroit.Decided Feb. 15, 2011, at 9:05 a.m.

William W. Decker, Jr. LLC, Grand Rapids (by William W. Decker, Jr.), for plaintiff.

Garan Lucow Miller, P.C., Detroit (by Daniel S. Saylor and Caryn A. Gordon), for defendant.

Before: CAVANAGH, P.J., and STEPHENS and RONAYNE KRAUSE, JJ.

RONAYNE KRAUSE, J.

Defendant appeals by right an order granting summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(10) in favor of plaintiff and denying it to defendant. This case involves computation of work-loss benefits under the no-fault act, MCL 500.3101 et seq. We affirm.

Plaintiff was injured in a serious automobile accident and sought wage-loss benefits from defendant, her insurer. Plaintiff's wage-loss benefit under the no-fault act is governed by MCL 500.3107(1)(b), which provides that personal protection insurance benefits are payable for

[w]ork loss consisting of loss of income from work an injured person would have performed during the first 3 years after the date of the accident if he or she had not been injured. Work loss does not include any loss after the date on which the injured person dies. Because the benefits received from personal protection insurance for loss of income are not taxable income, the benefits payable for such loss of income shall be reduced 15% unless the claimant presents to the insurer in support of his or her claim reasonable proof of a lower value of the income tax advantage in his or her case, in which case the lower value shall apply. Beginning March 30, 1973, the benefits payable for work loss sustained in a single 30–day period and the income earned by an injured person for work during the same period together shall not exceed $1,000.00, which maximum shall apply pro rata to any lesser period of work loss. Beginning October 1, 1974, the maximum shall be adjusted annually to reflect changes in the cost of living under rules prescribed by the commissioner.... [Emphasis added.]

Both parties agree that the adjusted benefit is now $4,713.

Plaintiff is a special education teacher on a yearly contract with a yearly salary of $63,895. Plaintiff had the option of electing to be paid in 21 installments while school was in session or in 26 biweekly installments throughout the entire year, and she elected the latter.¹ She sought benefits for the 2008–2009 school year. Plaintiff and the trial court computed her wage-loss payments by dividing her yearly salary, less fifteen percent, by twelve months. She and the trial court therefore found she was entitled to $4,525.90 a month. Because this is below the maximum monthly amount payable, plaintiff was therefore entitled to a total of $54,310.75.

Defendant, however, argues that plaintiff's entitlement should be computed on the basis of the specific number of calendar days plaintiff's contract specified that she should work, notwithstanding the yearly nature of her contract and her election to be paid throughout the year. Defendant therefore would divide plaintiff's yearly salary by her 183 contract workdays and subtract taxes to arrive at $296.78 a day. It then multiplied her daily amount by the number of days actually worked in each 30–day period, making allowances for scheduled days off. It arrived at monthly amounts ranging from $3,858.14 to $6,529.16, as well as two months in the summer with no payment at all. Because many months under defendant's computational framework would exceed the statutory cap, it would find plaintiff entitled to a total of only $44,268.64.

We review de novo dispositions of motions for summary disposition. Maiden v. Rozwood, 461 Mich. 109, 118, 597 N.W.2d 817 (1999). We also review de novo questions of statutory interpretation. People v. Swafford, 483 Mich. 1, 7, 762 N.W.2d 902 (2009). The ultimate goal for the courts when analyzing a statute is to effectuate the intent of the Legislature. Title Office, Inc. v. Van Buren Co. Treasurer, 469 Mich. 516, 519, 676 N.W.2d 207 (2004). “The no-fault insurance act is remedial in nature and must be liberally construed in favor of persons intended to benefit” from its goal of guaranteeing motor vehicle accident victims compensation for certain economic losses. Gobler v. Auto–Owners Ins. Co., 428 Mich. 51, 61, 404 N.W.2d 199 (1987).

There is nothing ambiguous about MCL 500.3107(1)(b). As defendant correctly points out, statutes must be read as a whole. The first sentence of MCL 500.3107(1)(b) may not be phrased as artfully as possible, but it is clearly a definition provision: “work loss” is defined as “loss of income from work an injured person would have performed ... if he or she had not been injured.” The statute provides an upper limit on the amount of monthly compensation for work loss. However, the statute does not mandate any sort of temporal correlation between the work and the income, as defendant asserts. The calculation might be simplest if a claimant is paid a straightforward, fixed dollar amount per day, but the fact that a salaried employee's income is not so linearly tied to the strict number of hours worked is not an impediment to proper calculation. Obviously, if a claimant does not actually miss any work, the claimant cannot claim any loss of income under the statute as a consequence. But if a claimant has missed work—as plaintiff has here—it remains only to determine the income lost as a consequence of not performing that work.

Put another way, MCL 500.3107(1)(b) does ...