Anne McArdle and Nicole Wisnewski Secure Appellate Win: Court of Appeals Upholds Notice Requirements, Protecting Insurers from Stale Claims

Attorneys Anne McArdle and Nicole Wisnewski recently secured a significant win for Amerisure Insurance Company in the Michigan Court of Appeals. They successfully defended a trial court’s decision to dismiss claims brought by Hoover Physical Therapy, LLC, and Medical Direct Transportation, LLC. The unpublished opinions, issued on July 22, 2025, affirmed the dismissal of claims for personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits related to a December 20, 2021, accident involving two separate patients.

The core of the cases revolved around Michigan’s one-year Notice Requirements for no-fault PIP benefit claims (MCL 500.3145(1)). Generally, written notice to the insurance company must be given within one year of the accident. The plaintiffs’ claims against Amerisure were filed in November 2023, nearly two years after the accident.

The plaintiffs argued that Amerisure received sufficient notice of injuries to passengers Antwan Quinney and Julian Tancock through phone calls and a police report. However, both the trial court and the Court of Appeals disagreed.

For Antwan Quinney’s case, the Court of Appeals emphasized that written notice must be given by, or “in behalf of,” the injured person. They found that the insured driver initially reported “no injuries” and later “was not aware of any injuries” to passengers. Within the one-year limit, Defendant Amerisure ordered the police report, where it was reported that Mr. Quinney had “leg pain”, though he received no treatment and was not transported to the hospital. The Court determined that the police and LexisNexis, as neutral third parties, were not acting on Quinney’s behalf when the report was generated and transmitted.

Notably, when speaking of the “in behalf of” language, the court dismissed Plaintiff’s claim that any written notice is “in behalf of” a claim for benefits because:

Plaintiffs’ position would also mean that every time an insurer receives notice of a potential injury, it is ‘in behalf of’ the injured person because it is in every injured person’s interest to preserve a claim for no-fault benefits. If we were to agree with plaintiffs’ understanding of Perkovic, then “the Legislature would have had no apparent reason to specify that notice ‘may be given by a person claiming benefits or by someone in his behalf’.” Burns v Auto-Owners Ins Co, 88 Mich App 663, 666; 279 NW2d 43 (1979).

In Julian Tancock’s case, the police report explicitly indicated “No Injury.” The Court ruled that this did not provide the required notice of the “nature of the person’s injury” under MCL 500.3145(4).

The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed the summary dismissal of both cases, concluding that the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by the one-year statute of limitations due to a lack of proper and timely notice of injury. This outcome underscores the vital importance of adhering to statutory notice requirements in no-fault insurance claims.