Lists of estate planning mistakes tend to be lists of things that are unwise. The ones that actually cost Northern Michigan families money are narrower than that, because each corresponds to a specific sentence in a Michigan statute that produces a specific bad result. Five of those sentences come up more than the rest.

None of the five requires a bad plan. Each can happen to a family with a competent set of documents, because the failure lives in execution, in a filing, or in a use of the property after the documents were signed, and the statute does not care what was intended.

Signing a Healthcare Document With the Wrong Witnesses

A patient advocate designation must be signed in the presence of two witnesses, and MCL 700.5506(4) lists who may not serve. The list includes the patient’s spouse, parent, child, grandchild, sibling, presumptive heir, and known devisee, along with the patient’s physician, the named advocate, and employees of the patient’s insurer, treating facility, or home for the aged.

The people most likely to be in the room when a parent signs are exactly the people the statute disqualifies. A designation witnessed by two adult children is not a designation with a technical flaw. It is a document that fails the execution requirement, and the family will discover that at the moment it is needed.

Two neighbors, or two staff members from the drafting office, satisfy the section. The fix costs nothing at signing and cannot be applied afterward.

Moving Cottage LLC Interests to the Children

A family that put the cottage into a limited liability company to share it has moved the property under MCL 211.27a(7)(h). Under that subdivision, a conveyance of more than 50 percent of the ownership interest in the entity is a transfer of ownership of the property the entity holds, and the property’s taxable value uncaps.

The relative exemption that protects a deed from parent to child lives in a different subdivision and does not reach into this one. Parents who assign all of the membership interests to their children have conveyed the whole entity, and the cottage uncaps regardless of who received the interests.

The entity also owes its own notice to the assessor within 45 days of a qualifying conveyance. Nothing is recorded when membership interests move, so the filing is the only thing that surfaces the transfer, and missing it delays the assessment rather than avoiding it. Our Michigan cottage succession page covers the alternatives to an entity for families who want the sharing without the exposure.

Signing a Trust and Never Funding It

A revocable trust governs only what has been retitled into it. That is not a drafting principle but a consequence of how the Michigan Trust Code operates, and the presumption of revocability under MCL 700.7602 is what keeps the settlor in control and also makes the settlor the one who has to move the assets.

An unfunded trust avoids nothing. The house still in the settlor’s name passes through probate. The account never retitled passes by beneficiary designation or by intestacy. The trust’s provisions apply to an empty container, and the successor trustee has nothing to administer.

Funding is a records exercise. Deeds are recorded, accounts are retitled, and beneficiary designations are conformed, and each step leaves a document that shows it was done. A trust folder with no such documents in it is the most common way a well-drafted plan turns out to have done nothing.

Skipping the Property Transfer Affidavit

Every transferee of Michigan real property owes a filing under MCL 211.27a(10). The buyer, grantee, or other transferee must notify the local assessing office of the transfer within 45 days, on a form prescribed by the State Tax Commission, stating the parties, the date, the consideration, and the parcel identification number or legal description.

The affidavit is owed whether or not an exemption from uncapping is claimed. A child who takes the family home under the relative exemption still files it. A remainder beneficiary under a Lady Bird deed still files it. The exemption is a reason the taxable value does not reset, not a reason the transfer goes unreported.

The register of deeds reports recorded transfers to the assessor monthly, so a recorded deed will surface on its own. The affidavit is what starts the assessor’s file correctly, and a transfer that surfaces without it starts from the wrong assumptions.

Planning Around a Small-Estate Figure That Moved

Michigan lets a small estate bypass full administration, by sworn statement under MCL 700.3983 or by court order under MCL 700.3982. For years the threshold was $25,000, and a great deal of family planning still assumes it.

Both sections now read $50,000, adjusted for inflation under MCL 700.1210, and the current-year figure is higher than the base. A family that arranged its affairs to keep the probate estate under a number that no longer governs has either done unnecessary work or, more often, has assumed an estate needs full administration when it qualifies for the simpler route.

Each of the five is visible on paper before it does any harm. A designation shows its witnesses, an entity shows its members, a trust shows what it holds, a transfer shows whether the affidavit was filed, and an estate shows its size against the current threshold. Call our office at (800) 525-6386 and we will walk through it with you.

Checking a Plan Against the Five

A plan review that reads the documents against these five sections takes less time than any one of them takes to unwind, and most families have never had one. We review existing plans at Neumann Law Group as part of our Michigan estate planning practice for clients across Northern Michigan and statewide. Call us at (800) 525-6386 or contact our office to arrange a consultation.

The Holmes Youthful Trainee Act lets a Michigan court accept a guilty plea from a young defendant without entering a judgment of conviction, and dismiss the case entirely if the person completes the term. The eligibility window moved on October 1, 2021, and material written before that date describes a range that no longer applies.

MCL 762.11(2) governs offenses now. The offense must have been committed on or after the individual’s eighteenth birthday but before their twenty-sixth birthday. The former rule in subsection (1), which reached offenses committed on or after a seventeenth birthday and before a twenty-fourth, applies only until October 1, 2021.

The Lower Bound Moved Up, Not Down

Both ends of the range changed, and they moved in the same direction. The upper bound rose from 24 to 26, which is the change usually reported. The lower bound rose from 17 to 18, which is usually not.

The practical consequence is that a 17-year-old charged today is outside the statute. That defendant is not a candidate for youthful trainee status, whatever the offense, and the alternatives lie in juvenile jurisdiction or in ordinary adult sentencing instead.

Age is measured at the time of the offense rather than at the plea or the sentencing. A defendant who turns 26 while a case is pending has not aged out of eligibility, and one who committed the offense a week before turning 18 does not become eligible by waiting.

Prosecutor Consent Applies to Part of the Range

The court may consider and assign youthful trainee status with the individual’s own consent, and for part of the range that is the only consent required. Where the offense was committed on or after the twenty-first birthday but before the twenty-sixth, the individual must not be assigned to youthful trainee status without the consent of the prosecuting attorney.

That produces two practical bands under the current statute. Offenses at 18, 19, or 20 need the court’s exercise of discretion and the defendant’s agreement. Offenses from 21 through 25 need the prosecutor as well, which makes the charging office a decision-maker rather than an observer.

Both bands remain discretionary for the court. Nothing in the section obliges a judge to grant the status to an eligible defendant, and our page on juvenile and HYTA cases in Michigan covers how those requests are presented.

Four Categories the Statute Excludes

Subsection (3) removes several offenses from the reach of the section entirely. A felony for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for life is excluded, as is a major controlled substance offense.

A traffic offense is also excluded, and that exclusion is the one that surprises families most often. An operating-while-intoxicated charge is a traffic offense, so HYTA is not a route around a first OWI for a 19-year-old, however sympathetic the circumstances.

The section further excludes violations, attempted violations, and conspiracies to violate the criminal sexual conduct provisions at MCL 750.520b through 750.520e, other than 750.520d(1)(a) and 750.520e(1)(a), and it excludes assault with intent under MCL 750.520g committed with intent to commit one of those offenses, subject to the same two carve-outs.

The Status Can Be Revoked, and Sometimes Must Be

Assignment is not the end of the matter. MCL 762.12(1) lets the court terminate its consideration of an individual as a youthful trainee at any time, and lets it revoke the status at its discretion any time before final release.

Subsection (2) removes that discretion in one direction. The court shall revoke the status where the individual pleads guilty to or is convicted of certain offenses during the period of assignment, including a felony carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, a major controlled substance offense, and a list of penal code violations covering assault, home invasion, firearm offenses, criminal sexual conduct, and robbery, with the same two narrow carve-outs the eligibility section uses.

The consequence of revocation is that the guilty plea already entered becomes a judgment of conviction. Youthful trainee status defers a conviction rather than replacing one, so the exposure a defendant accepted at the plea is still there for as long as the assignment runs.

What Successful Completion Actually Produces

Where consideration is not terminated and the status is not revoked, the court discharges the individual and dismisses the proceedings on final release. That dismissal is the point of the statute.

The status is not a conviction for a crime, and MCL 762.14(2) provides that the individual shall not suffer a civil disability or loss of right or privilege following release because of the assignment. One exception survives for assignments made before October 1, 2004 for offenses listed under the Sex Offenders Registration Act.

The record is closed rather than erased. Unless a judgment of conviction is entered, all proceedings regarding the disposition and the assignment are closed to public inspection, but remain open to Michigan courts, the Department of Corrections, the family independence agency, law enforcement personnel, and prosecuting attorneys, for use only in performing their duties. A background check by an employer does not reach it. A later prosecution can.

Whether the statute is available at all is settled by two dates and the charge, and that is worth establishing before a plea is entered. One call is usually enough for us to tell you where things stand. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Before a Plea Is Entered

HYTA runs on a guilty plea, so the decision has to be made while the plea is still in front of the court rather than afterward. Our Michigan criminal defense practice at Neumann Law Group covers these cases from charge through discharge, for families of young adults in Northern Michigan and statewide. We are glad to talk through any of these questions. Call (800) 525-6386 or send us a message and we will get back to you.

One collision can produce claims that expire in different years, and the periods are set by different statutes that do not cross-reference each other. A single crash can leave one claim live and another already gone, which is why a general answer about how long someone has is usually the wrong answer.

The default for injury to a person or property is three years, under MCL 600.5805(2). Three other periods displace it depending on what is being claimed and from whom, and each has its own trigger.

Three Years for the Claim Against the At-Fault Party

MCL 600.5805(2) sets three years after the time of the death or injury for all actions to recover damages for the death of a person or for injury to a person or property. That is the period for a tort claim against whoever caused the harm, and it is the number most people have heard.

It is also the period for a mini tort claim for vehicle damage, which is a tort claim against the at-fault driver rather than an insurance benefit. Product liability actions run on three years as well, under subsection (12), with a proof consequence attached where a product has been in use for at least 10 years.

The trigger is the injury, not the discovery of it, and not the point at which treatment finishes. Our Michigan personal injury attorneys work from that date backward in every intake.

One detail in the opening subsection is worth noting. MCL 600.5805(1) measures the period from when the claim first accrued to the plaintiff, or to someone through whom the plaintiff claims, so a claim inherited or derived from another person does not restart on the date it changed hands.

One Year for No-Fault Benefits

Personal injury protection benefits do not run on the three-year period at all. MCL 500.3145 bars an action for PIP benefits more than one year after the accident unless written notice of injury was given to the insurer within that year, or the insurer already paid benefits for the injury.

Where notice was given or a payment made, the action may be brought within one year after the most recent allowable expense, work loss, or survivor’s loss was incurred. A separate limit in the same subsection caps recovery to losses incurred within one year before the action was commenced, so a timely claim can still lose older bills.

Applying the three-year figure to a benefits claim is the most common way a Michigan no-fault case is lost, and it happens because both claims arise from the same crash and nothing about the crash signals that two clocks started.

Two Years for Malpractice, With a Six-Year Outer Wall

A claim charging malpractice runs on two years under MCL 600.5805(8). The accrual rule is stricter than most people expect, because MCL 600.5838a(1) provides that a medical malpractice claim accrues at the act or omission regardless of when the plaintiff discovers it.

A discovery route exists alongside it. An action may be brought within the applicable period or within six months after the plaintiff discovers or should have discovered the claim, whichever is later, with the burden of proving non-discovery resting on the plaintiff. A six-year repose closes the outside edge except in narrow circumstances, including where discovery was prevented by fraudulent conduct.

The notice of intent required before filing interacts with all of this and does not extend it. Tolling under MCL 600.5856(c) is capped at the days remaining in the notice period, so the clock pauses rather than resetting.

The Deadlines That Run Against Someone Other Than a Defendant

Two more periods run against parties who are not the person being sued, which is what makes them easy to miss. A person claiming through the assigned claims plan must notify the Michigan Automobile Insurance Placement Facility within one year after the accident under MCL 500.3174, and a refusal of a chemical test after a traffic stop carries a 14-day window to request a hearing under MCL 257.625f.

Neither is a lawsuit deadline. Both terminate a right if they pass, and neither generates the kind of paperwork that reminds anyone they exist. The refusal window in particular starts from the date of a notice rather than from any court date, which is what makes it easy to lose while a criminal case is still being scheduled.

A wrongful death claim adds another layer. The action itself runs on the three-year period, but MCL 600.2922 imposes separate deadlines on family members who may share in the proceeds, including a duty to advise the personal representative’s attorney within 60 days of service and a requirement to present a claim by the date set for the distribution hearing. Our page on Michigan wrongful death claims covers who may bring the action.

Nothing on this list is extended by an insurer’s conduct, by ongoing treatment, or by settlement discussions. Tolling exists where a statute provides it, and the provisions that do so are narrow and specific rather than general.

The wrong deadline is worse than no deadline, because it produces confidence. A five-minute conversation sorts out which one governs. We talk these questions through with you. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Working Out Which Deadline Governs

Sorting the periods is a document exercise rather than a judgment call, and it is far cheaper at the start of a claim than at the end of one. At Neumann Law Group, we handle injury and no-fault claims throughout Michigan, from Traverse City and Grand Rapids to Detroit. If you would like us to look at your situation, call (800) 525-6386 or contact us through our website.

The claim made for a Lady Bird deed is that it keeps a home out of probate, off the Medicaid ledger, and under the property tax cap all at once. Each of those results has a statutory reason, and the reasons are more specific than the marketing. Knowing where each one comes from is what lets a family rely on the deed rather than hope about it.

The Medicaid result rests on a definition. Under MCL 400.112h(a), the estate that Michigan’s Medicaid estate recovery program may reach means all property and other assets included within an individual’s estate that is subject to probate administration under Article III of the Estates and Protected Individuals Code. Property that never enters probate is outside that definition.

The Probate Estate Is the Whole Reach

Michigan’s recovery program was established under MCL 400.112g to comply with the federal requirement in section 1917 of Title XIX, and it operates against the estate as the state defines it. The state chose the probate estate. A home that passes at death by operation of a recorded deed, rather than through a personal representative, is not administered under Article III and is not within the definition.

That is the mechanism, and it is worth stating as a mechanism rather than as a feature. A Lady Bird deed reserves a life estate to the owner with the power to sell, mortgage, or revoke, and names a remainder beneficiary who takes at death. The remainder passes by the deed. Nothing about it is administered in probate, so nothing about it is in the estate the program may reach.

The same definition explains why an ordinary life estate deed behaves differently on the Medicaid side. A life estate given away without the retained powers is a completed transfer during life, and transfers during life are analyzed under the eligibility rules and the lookback rather than under recovery. Our Michigan Medicaid planning page covers that separate analysis.

What the Statute Says About Planning Around Recovery

The recovery statute is candid about estate planning, and the candor is worth reading before relying on any device. Among the hardship provisions the department was directed to define, MCL 400.112g(3)(e)(iii) requires a rebuttable presumption that no hardship exists if the hardship resulted from estate planning methods under which assets were diverted in order to avoid estate recovery.

That presumption operates on hardship waivers, which are requests to excuse recovery from an estate the program can otherwise reach. It does not enlarge the definition of the estate. A Lady Bird deed does not ask for a hardship waiver, because the home was never in the recoverable estate to begin with, and the presumption has nothing to attach to.

The other hardship exemptions the section names are worth knowing for the families who do face recovery. They include the portion of a homestead’s value equal to or less than 50 percent of the average home price in the county at the recipient’s death, and the primary income-producing asset of survivors, such as a family farm or business. The department may not pursue recovery where the cost exceeds what is recoverable or where recovery is not in the state’s economic interest.

The Subdivision Written for a Retained Life Estate

The property tax result comes from a subdivision written for exactly this deed. MCL 211.27a(7)(d) addresses what happens when a life estate the transferor kept for themselves ends, and it says that the resulting transfer of the remainder is not a transfer of ownership, provided the person taking it is one of the relatives the section lists and the home stays out of commercial use. The subdivision has applied since December 31, 2014, and without it the end of a life estate would reset the taxable value like any other change of hands.

A Lady Bird deed is a retained life estate, and the remainder passing at death is the expiration the subdivision describes. Where the beneficiary is on the list and the use stays residential, the taxable value does not reset. Where the beneficiary is a niece or a friend, it does, and the deed’s other advantages remain while that one does not.

Nothing has to be filed to claim the exemption, but it can be tested. An assessor or the Department of Treasury may ask the remainder beneficiary to prove the relationship and the residential use, and the answer is due within 30 days on pain of a $200 fine. A copy of the recorded deed and a birth or adoption record are the usual proof, and both are simpler to gather while the parent is alive than after.

What the Deed Leaves Untouched

A Lady Bird deed changes what happens to one parcel at death. It does not change eligibility for benefits during life, because the owner keeps full control of the property and the retained powers are what make it not a completed gift. A family that expects the deed to reduce countable assets for an application has misunderstood which side of the ledger it works on.

Nor does it govern anything the owner holds outside the deed. Bank accounts, vehicles, and any real property not conveyed pass under a will or a trust or by intestacy, and whatever enters probate from those sources is within the recoverable estate under the same definition.

The deed’s value is exact. It keeps one property out of the probate estate, and Michigan’s recovery program reaches only the probate estate. Everything else in a plan has to be handled by everything else in the plan. If that is where your situation sits, call us at (800) 525-6386.

When the Language of the Deed Decides the Result

Whether a particular deed carries the retained powers that make it a Lady Bird deed, rather than an ordinary life estate, is a question of its language, and the two produce opposite Medicaid results. We prepare and review Michigan Lady Bird deeds at Neumann Law Group as part of our Michigan estate planning practice across Northern Michigan and statewide. Call our office at (800) 525-6386, or contact us online, and we will talk it through with you.

Most writing about protecting assets from Medicaid concerns what a family does in advance. Less is written about what Michigan protects after the fact, for a family that did no planning at all, and the statute that created the estate recovery program contains a list. The list is not generous, but it is specific, and it applies whether or not anyone thought about it in time.

MCL 400.112g(3)(e) directed the department to define hardship for purposes of exempting an estate from recovery, and it named what the definition had to include at a minimum. It also required the department to give every individual enrolling in Medicaid for long-term care written materials explaining how to apply for a hardship waiver, which is a document most families never see because nobody points to it.

Homestead Value Up to Half the County Average

The first required category is a portion of the recipient’s homestead. The exemption reaches the portion of the homestead’s value that is equal to or less than 50 percent of the average price of a home in the county where the homestead is located, as of the date of the recipient’s death.

The measure is local rather than statewide, and the date is the date of death. A modest house in a county with a high average home price may fall entirely within the exemption, while the same house in a county with a low average may not. The comparison is to the county’s average, not to the state’s or to the house’s own assessed value.

The exemption applies to a portion of value rather than to the property as a whole. Where the home is worth more than half the county average, the excess remains within reach, and the family’s position depends on what else is in the estate and on the other categories below. Our Michigan Medicaid planning page covers the eligibility rules that operate before any of this.

A Family Farm or Business Counts on Its Own Terms

The second required category is the portion of an estate that is the primary income-producing asset of the survivors. The statute names a family farm or business as examples rather than as the whole category, so the question is whether the asset is what the survivors live on.

That framing matters in a region where a cherry orchard, a small marina, or a seasonal rental operation is both the estate’s largest asset and the household’s income. An asset that fits the description is exempt as a hardship category without any showing beyond that fact.

The department was also directed to establish circumstances under which it may review requests for exemption in cases that do not meet the hardship definition at all, and to implement the federal requirement that heirs not be unreasonably harmed by the program. Those are discretionary avenues rather than entitlements, but they exist in the statute and a request may be made under them.

The Presumption Against Planned Diversion

The same subsection carries the provision that cuts the other way, and it is worth reading before relying on any of the above. The hardship definition must include a rebuttable presumption that no hardship exists if the hardship resulted from estate planning methods under which assets were diverted in order to avoid estate recovery.

The presumption is rebuttable, so it can be answered, and it attaches to hardship that resulted from diversion rather than to every family that ever consulted a lawyer. A family whose hardship arises from ordinary circumstances is not within it. A family that moved assets out of reach and then claims the remainder is a hardship is exactly who it was written for.

The presumption operates on waivers. It does not enlarge what the program can reach in the first place, which under MCL 400.112h(a) is the estate subject to probate administration under Article III of the Estates and Protected Individuals Code. Property that passes outside probate, by deed or by beneficiary designation, is not in the recoverable estate and does not need a waiver to stay out of it.

Two Limits That Are Not Waivers

Subsection (4) places a floor under the program that operates without any application. The department shall not seek recovery if the costs of recovery exceed the amount of recovery available, or if the recovery is not in the best economic interest of the state. A small estate may be outside the program’s reach on economics alone.

Subsection (2)(b) caps what may be recovered. Amounts subject to recovery shall not exceed the cost of providing the medical services, and settlements are to take into account the best interests of the recipient’s survivors. The program collects what it paid, not the value of the estate.

Those two provisions, together with the probate-estate definition, describe the actual outer boundary of Michigan’s recovery. The hardship categories operate inside that boundary, for estates the program can otherwise reach. Which of the two a family is dealing with is the first thing to establish when a recovery notice arrives, and it is a question the notice itself will not answer. We are glad to look at it with you before anything is filed. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

If a Recovery Notice Has Already Arrived

A notice from the recovery program is the beginning of a process with categories, presumptions, and economic limits written into it, and a family that reads it as a bill has skipped every one of them. At Neumann Law Group, we handle recovery questions alongside our Michigan estate planning practice for families across Northern Michigan and statewide, including the Michigan probate administration the program attaches to. We are happy to talk it through with you. Call (800) 525-6386 or contact our office.

A psychiatric chart in Michigan will often describe a patient’s depression as moderate, and the same word appears in Social Security’s disability listings with a different job. The listings rate limitation on a five-point scale, and where a claimant lands on that scale decides whether a mental health claim meets Listing 12.04, 12.06, or 12.15 at all.

Section 12.00F of the Listing of Impairments sets the scale at none, mild, moderate, marked, and extreme. To satisfy paragraph B of any of those listings, the disorder must produce an extreme limitation in one of the four areas of mental functioning or a marked limitation in two. Each point is then defined, and every definition turns on one phrase, whether the person can function in the area independently, appropriately, effectively, and on a sustained basis.

Neumann Law Group reads a Michigan Social Security Disability mental health file for that phrase first. A record from Kent County or anywhere else in the state that never addresses sustained functioning cannot support a marked rating, no matter how serious the diagnosis.

What Each Point on the Scale Means

The definitions in 12.00F2 are short, and the distance between the middle ones is the whole case.

• None. The person is able to function in the area independently, appropriately, effectively, and on a sustained basis.
• Mild. Functioning in the area on that basis is slightly limited.
• Moderate. Functioning in the area on that basis is fair.
• Marked. Functioning in the area on that basis is seriously limited.
• Extreme. The person is not able to function in the area independently, appropriately, effectively, and on a sustained basis.

A marked limitation, under 12.00F2, is functioning in an area of mental functioning that is seriously limited when measured independently, appropriately, effectively, and on a sustained basis. Fair and seriously limited sit one step apart on the scale and on opposite sides of the listing. The four areas the scale is applied to are understanding, remembering, or applying information; interacting with others; concentrating, persisting, or maintaining pace; and adapting or managing oneself, and the two routes through each listing, paragraphs A and B or paragraphs A and C, are set out on our mental health conditions page.

A Clinician’s Moderate Is Not the Listing’s Moderate

Section 12.00F3a addresses the vocabulary collision directly. The medical evidence may include descriptors regarding the diagnostic stage or level of the disorder, such as mild or moderate, and clinicians may use those terms to characterize the medical condition. The listing then states that these terms will not always be the same as the degree of limitation in a paragraph B area. A psychiatrist describing moderate major depressive disorder is classifying an illness, not rating a patient’s capacity to concentrate through a workday.

The listing also refuses to let any one document settle the rating. Under 12.00F3d, no single piece of information, including test results, can establish the degree of limitation of an area of mental functioning, and the degree does not necessarily reflect a specific type or number of activities the person has difficulty doing. The rating is drawn from the whole record, which is what the special technique in 20 C.F.R. § 404.1520a requires the agency to rate and document in its decision.

A treatment record built from brief medication visits tends to read as moderate in every area, because nothing in it measures sustained functioning. The chart shows whether a file is in that condition, and reading it that way takes one conversation. Call our office at (800) 525-6386 and we will walk through it with you.

Functioning at Home Does Not Prove Functioning at Work

Section 12.00F3 draws the line between the kitchen and the workplace with care. The same four areas are used at home and at work, and difficulty using one at home may mean difficulty using it at work. The reverse does not follow. The listing states that where a person is able to use an area of mental functioning at home or in the community, the agency will not necessarily assume the same ability in a work setting where the demands and stressors differ.

Section 12.00D3 goes further about daily life. The fact that a person does routine activities without help does not necessarily mean the person has no mental disorder or is not disabled, and the listing names the activities it has in mind: taking care of personal needs, cooking, shopping, paying bills, living alone, and driving a car. A denial that lists those activities as proof of capacity has cited the listing’s own examples of what does not prove it.

Support and Structure Raise the Rating

The more help a person needs, the more limited the listing finds them. Section 12.00F3e states that the degree of limitation reflects the kind and extent of supports or supervision the person receives and the characteristics of any structured setting where they spend their time, and that the more extensive the support or the more structured the setting needed in order to function, the more limited the agency will find the person to be.

Section 12.00D1 gives the examples, and they describe ordinary Michigan households. They include family members who administer medication, remind the person to eat, shop and pay bills, or change their own work hours so the person is never home alone. They include a job held only with a job coach or a supervisor’s help, and wraparound mental health services delivered in the person’s own apartment.

The last example surprises people. It is a person who lives alone with no formal supports and has created a highly structured environment by eliminating all but minimally necessary contact with the world outside their living space. Each of these is evidence of limitation, and each is invisible in a chart unless someone puts it there.

The rating comes from the whole record rather than from the diagnosis, and a denial that rates a limitation as moderate is appealable on the 60-day track described on our SSDI denial page. The appeal is the place to supply the sustained-functioning evidence the initial file lacked.

Translating a Chart Into the Listing’s Terms

Fair and seriously limited are one step apart on the scale, and the step is proved with evidence about sustained functioning that most charts were never written to contain. We represent mental health claimants at Neumann Law Group across Michigan, from Grand Rapids to Detroit. Call us at (800) 525-6386 or contact our office to arrange a consultation.

Michigan’s no-fault act abolished most tort liability arising from the use of an insured motor vehicle, and then carved out a handful of exceptions. One of them lets a driver recover vehicle damage directly from the driver who caused it, up to a capped amount, and it is the smallest and most frequently used claim in Michigan traffic law.

The mini tort is that exception. MCL 500.3135(3)(e) allows damages of up to $1,000 to a motor vehicle, or up to $3,000 for motor vehicle accidents occurring after July 1, 2020, and only to the extent that the damages are not covered by insurance. That last clause does more work than the dollar figure does.

What the Statute Actually Allows

A mini tort claim is a tort claim against the at-fault driver for damage to a vehicle, capped by statute and limited to what insurance did not pay. The cap turns on the accident date rather than the filing date. Accidents on or before July 1, 2020 remain at the original $1,000 figure, and the higher amount reaches accidents after that date.

The phrase “to the extent that the damages are not covered by insurance” is the operative limit. A driver carrying collision coverage does not recover the repair bill through a mini tort, because the insurer paid it. What remains uncovered is the deductible, and for most claimants the mini tort claim is the deductible and nothing more.

A driver with no collision coverage is in a different position. There, the uncovered damage is the whole repair cost, and the statutory cap becomes the real ceiling on what a mini tort can return. I get asked whether the claim is worth the trouble for a few hundred dollars, and the answer turns almost entirely on which of those two situations a driver is in.

Where a Mini Tort Claim Is Filed

Subsection (4)(c) directs that the action be commenced, whenever legally possible, in the small claims division of the district court or in municipal court. The forum is part of the design. These are claims meant to be resolved without counsel, on a scale where hiring one would consume the recovery.

Subsection (4)(b) explains why these claims are paid the way they are. Mini tort liability is not a component of the residual liability for which the no-fault act requires drivers to maintain security, so the at-fault driver’s liability coverage does not answer for it. The money comes from the driver personally, which is the reason a demand letter to an individual is often more effective here than a claim to an insurer.

Removal carries a cost. Where either party removes the action to a higher court and does not prevail there, the judge may assess costs against them, which discourages using the removal as leverage.

Subsection (4)(d) is worth knowing about before filing. A decision in a mini tort action is not res judicata in any later proceeding determining other liability from the same circumstances. Losing a small claims case over a bumper does not decide an injury claim arising from the same collision.

Two Ways to Lose a Mini Tort Claim Outright

Damages in a mini tort action are assessed on comparative fault, and under subsection (4)(a) they must not be assessed in favor of a party who is more than 50% at fault. A driver mostly responsible for a collision recovers nothing here, and the same threshold governs the noneconomic damages claim, which our page on comparative fault in Michigan covers in more depth.

The second bar is insurance status. Subsection (4)(e) provides that damages must not be assessed where the damaged vehicle was being operated, at the time of the damage, without the security the no-fault act requires. An uninsured driver whose car is destroyed by someone else’s admitted negligence recovers nothing under this provision.

Those two rules together explain why a mini tort claim that looks straightforward can fail. Fault is assessed even in small claims court, and coverage status is checked.

How the Mini Tort Fits the Rest of a Claim

The mini tort sits alongside claims that behave nothing like it, and it is one of several exceptions in a Michigan personal injury case arising from a collision. Personal injury protection benefits come from a claimant’s own insurer regardless of fault and run on their own deadlines. A claim for noneconomic loss against the at-fault driver requires death, serious impairment of body function, or permanent serious disfigurement under MCL 500.3135(1). The mini tort requires none of that and returns none of it.

Intentional conduct sits outside the cap entirely. Subsection (3)(a) preserves tort liability for intentionally caused harm to persons or property, and the statute defines the term narrowly. A person does not act intentionally where they act, or refrain from acting, to avert injury to any person or damage to tangible property, even knowing harm is substantially certain to follow.

Keeping them separate matters because the deadlines and the proofs differ by claim type, and a driver who resolves the vehicle damage quickly has not resolved anything else. Our Michigan No-Fault Insurance Guide sets out how the coverage tiers introduced by the 2019 reform interact with each of these claims.

A mini tort claim is small, but it is often the first sign that a larger claim exists, and we handle both across Northern Michigan and statewide. One call is usually enough for us to tell you where things stand. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

When a Small Property Claim Signals a Larger One

A capped property claim is rarely the reason someone calls a lawyer, and it is often the first sign of a larger claim that has deadlines running against it already. At Neumann Law Group, we represent drivers and passengers injured throughout Michigan, including Traverse City, Grand Rapids, and Detroit. We are glad to talk through any of these questions. Call (800) 525-6386 or send us a message and we will get back to you.

A verdict figure and a judgment figure are different numbers in Michigan, and the distance between them is set by statute rather than by negotiation. A jury returns an amount for pain and suffering, and a separate provision then tells the court how to convert that amount into an enforceable judgment.

MCL 600.6306 governs the conversion in every personal injury action other than medical malpractice. It sets the order in which damages are entered, requires future damages to be reduced to present value, and applies the injured person’s share of fault to the total.

The Order the Statute Requires

Judgment is entered against each defendant, including a third-party defendant, in a sequence the statute lists. Past economic damages come first, less collateral source payments under MCL 600.6303. Past noneconomic damages come second and are entered as found.

Future damages follow, and each future category is reduced. Future economic damages are entered less health care costs and collectible collateral source payments, reduced to gross present cash value. Future medical and other health care costs are reduced to gross present cash value. Future noneconomic damages are reduced the same way.

Taxable and allowable costs come last, including interest as permitted by MCL 600.6013 or 600.6455. The sequence matters because reductions attach to particular categories rather than to the award as a whole, and because costs and interest are entered at the end of that sequence rather than alongside the damages they follow.

Judgment is entered against each defendant separately under this scheme, third-party defendants included, so a verdict against multiple parties is not simply one number owed jointly in the form the jury wrote it.

Five Percent a Year, Compounded

Gross present cash value is defined in the same section. It means the total amount of future damages reduced to present value at a rate of 5% per year, compounded annually, for each year in which those damages will accrue, as found by the trier of fact.

The consequence for a young, seriously injured plaintiff is substantial. Pain and suffering projected across decades is discounted at a compounding rate for every one of those years, so the further out a loss extends, the less each future year contributes to the judgment.

Past noneconomic damages are not discounted. That difference makes the allocation between past and future a real question at trial rather than a bookkeeping detail, because the same total split differently produces different judgments.

Then Comparative Fault Applies to the Total

Where the plaintiff was assigned a percentage of fault under MCL 600.6304, the total judgment amount is reduced by that percentage, subject to MCL 600.2959. The court then determines the ratio of total past damages to total future damages and allocates the deduction proportionally between them.

MCL 600.2959 supplies the ceiling that the molding provision defers to. Its comparison is not to a flat majority but to everyone else combined, parties and non-parties alike, and crossing that line removes the noneconomic award entirely while leaving a proportionally reduced economic recovery in place.

Allocated fault therefore does two things to a pain and suffering award. Below the line it reduces it proportionally. Above the line it eliminates it, while leaving a reduced economic recovery in place.

Malpractice Is Molded Under a Different Provision

MCL 600.6306 applies to a personal injury action other than an action for medical malpractice, and that carve-out is written into its first sentence. A malpractice verdict is converted under MCL 600.6306a instead, which MCL 600.2959 identifies as the alternative where it applies.

The practical point for anyone comparing outcomes is that a malpractice verdict and an auto verdict of the same size are not the same judgment. They are processed under different sections, and a figure quoted from one context does not transfer to the other.

Collateral source treatment is part of the same machinery. Past economic damages are entered less collateral source payments under MCL 600.6303, and future economic damages less those determined collectible under MCL 600.6303(5), so what an injured person’s own insurance already paid affects the judgment rather than the verdict.

Why the Threshold Question Comes First

None of this arithmetic is reached unless the claim clears the tort threshold. Noneconomic damages are available against an at-fault driver only where the injured person suffered death, serious impairment of body function, or permanent serious disfigurement under MCL 500.3135(1).

Two consequences follow for how a case is prepared. Evidence about how an injury changed a person’s life carries the threshold and also sizes the award, so it does double work. And evidence that sorts past from future loss affects the judgment independently of the total the jury writes down.

Our Michigan personal injury attorneys build both records from the outset, because neither can be assembled after a verdict. The comparative fault rules that reduce an award are argued from the same facts that establish it.

The 5% compounding rate is the figure most people have never heard and the one that moves a large award the most. It is worth understanding before a number is discussed. We talk these questions through with you. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

What an Award Is Worth After the Statute Applies

A settlement figure is only comparable to a verdict figure once the statutory reductions are accounted for, and that comparison is the one that should drive a decision. We represent injured people at Neumann Law Group throughout Michigan, including Traverse City, Grand Rapids, and Detroit. If you would like us to look at your situation, call (800) 525-6386 or contact us through our website.

A Michigan medical malpractice claim runs on a two-year limitations period that begins at the act or omission rather than at the moment a patient learns something went wrong. The mandatory notice of intent interacts with that period in a way that surprises people, because serving the notice does not restart the clock and under some circumstances does not stop it at all.

MCL 600.5856(c) tolls the limitations period when notice is given, subject to three conditions written into the same sentence. The notice must be given in compliance with the applicable notice period under MCL 600.2912b, the claim must be one that would be barred during that period, and the tolling runs no longer than the number of days remaining in the notice period after the date notice was given.

When the Claim Accrues and When It Is Discovered

A malpractice claim accrues at the time of the act or omission that is its basis, regardless of when the plaintiff discovers or otherwise has knowledge of it, under MCL 600.5838a(1). The limitations period is two years under MCL 600.5805(8).

Subsection (2) adds a discovery route. An action may be commenced within the otherwise applicable period, or within six months after the plaintiff discovers or should have discovered the existence of the claim, whichever is later. The burden of proving that the plaintiff neither discovered nor should have discovered the claim at least six months before the period expired sits with the plaintiff.

A six-year repose closes the outside edge. The claim may not be commenced later than six years after the act or omission, except where MCL 600.5851(7) or (8) applies, or where discovery was prevented by fraudulent conduct of the professional or facility. Our Michigan medical malpractice page sets out how those periods apply across different kinds of claims.

Whether the Claim Is Malpractice at All

The notice and affidavit requirements attach to medical malpractice claims, so the threshold question is whether a claim is one. MCL 600.5838a(1) defines the field by reference to who is being sued rather than to how badly the care went.

It reaches a licensed health care professional, a licensed health facility or agency, and an employee or agent of such a facility who is engaging in or assisting in medical care and treatment. A licensed health care professional means an individual licensed or registered under article 15 of the Public Health Code and engaged in the practice of their profession, and the statute expressly excludes a sanitarian and a veterinarian. A licensed health facility or agency means one licensed under article 17.

The distinction decides which rules apply. A claim that is ordinary negligence rather than malpractice carries no notice requirement and no affidavit, and runs on a different limitations analysis. Getting that characterization wrong at the outset produces either an unnecessary six-month delay or a complaint dismissed for skipping a step.

What the Notice Buys and What It Does Not

The tolling provision is narrower than it first reads. It applies where a claim would be barred during the notice period, which means it is a rescue for a claim already close to its deadline rather than an extension available to every claimant who serves a notice.

The cap is the part worth reading twice. Tolling lasts no longer than the days remaining in the applicable notice period after the notice was given. A claimant with 10 days left on the limitations period who serves a compliant notice gets the notice period tolled and then has those 10 days back. The clock is paused, not reset, and the days that were spent are gone.

Serving late therefore compresses everything that follows. Investigation, expert review, and the affidavit that must accompany the complaint all have to happen inside whatever remained when the notice went out.

A Defective Notice Tolls Nothing

The statute conditions tolling on notice given in compliance with MCL 600.2912b. A notice that does not comply is not a notice that tolls, and the consequence of that lands after the limitations period has already run.

The content requirements are specific. The notice states the factual basis of the claim, the standard of practice or care alleged, the manner in which it was breached, the action that should have been taken to comply, and the manner in which the breach caused the injury. Each is a place a notice can fall short.

The practical effect is that a claim can be timely when the notice is mailed and untimely by the time a court rules the notice inadequate. That sequence is the reason notices in this area are drafted with more care than their length suggests.

The Affidavit of Merit Is a Separate Requirement

Compliance with the notice does not end the filing obligations. Under MCL 600.2912d, the complaint must be filed with an affidavit of merit signed by a health professional the plaintiff’s attorney reasonably believes meets the expert requirements of MCL 600.2169.

That affidavit certifies the professional has reviewed the notice and the medical records supplied, and it states the applicable standard of practice or care, the opinion that it was breached, and the actions that should have been taken or omitted to comply with it. Securing a qualified reviewer takes time that the tolling cap does not create.

A calendar is more useful than a summary of the law when a malpractice deadline is close, and mapping those dates is something we do on a first call. If that is where your situation sits, call us at (800) 525-6386.

Mapping the Dates on a Malpractice Claim

The notice requirement and the limitations period are separate rules that fail together, and by the time the failure is visible it is usually not fixable. At Neumann Law Group, we represent patients and families in Michigan personal injury and malpractice claims from Traverse City, Grand Rapids, and Detroit. Call our office at (800) 525-6386, or contact us online, and we will talk it through with you.

Michigan writes nursing home residents’ rights into statute rather than leaving them to facility policy. That matters for families trying to judge whether something is wrong, because the most useful warning signs are not vague impressions of poor care. They are moments where a facility does something the law says a resident is entitled to refuse or to be told about.

MCL 333.20201 is the operative section of Michigan’s Public Health Code. It entitles a patient or resident to be free from mental and physical abuse and from restraints, to inspect their own medical record, to communicate privately with a physician or an attorney, and to receive appropriate care regardless of how that care is paid for. Each of those is a place where a warning sign has a legal name.

Sedation That Nobody Explained

A resident who becomes suddenly and persistently drowsy, withdrawn, or difficult to rouse may be under a chemical restraint, and the statute treats that as a restriction on their liberty rather than a treatment decision the facility makes alone.

Restraints are permitted only where authorized in writing by the attending physician, a physician’s assistant under a practice agreement, or an advanced practice registered nurse, for a specified and limited time, or where an emergency requires them to protect the resident from injury to self or others. In an emergency the restraint may only be applied by a qualified professional, who must set out the circumstances in writing and promptly report it to whoever authorized it.

Chemical restraints carry an additional check. The physician or advanced practice registered nurse who authorized the restraint must be consulted within 24 hours after it commences. A facility that cannot produce a written authorization, a specified duration, or that consultation has a documentation problem that is also a rights problem.

Being Told You Cannot See the Record

Families are frequently told that a chart is internal, that records take weeks, or that a request has to go through a corporate office. The statute is more direct. An individual who is or has been a patient or resident is entitled to inspect the medical record, or to receive a copy for a reasonable fee, under the Medical Records Access Act.

The right belongs to the resident, and the same subsection restricts giving a copy to a third party without the resident’s authorization, subject to what federal privacy rules permit or require. A family member acting under a valid authorization or as a legal representative is not a stranger to the record.

Records requests matter beyond curiosity. Bedsore staging, weight logs, and medication administration records are where a pattern becomes visible, and they are the documents most likely to be reconstructed if a request is delayed. Our page on bedsores in Michigan nursing homes explains what those records tend to show.

Isolation From Visitors, Mail, or an Attorney

A resident is entitled to associate and have private communications and consultations with their physician, with their attorney, or with any other individual of their choice, and to send and receive personal mail unopened on the same day it arrives. Those rights may be limited only where medically contraindicated and documented in the record by the attending physician, a physician’s assistant, or an advanced practice registered nurse.

The statute goes further and says a resident’s civil and religious liberties, including the right to independent personal decisions and to knowledge of available choices, may not be infringed, and that the facility is to encourage and assist in the fullest exercise of them.

A facility that discourages visits, routes calls, opens mail, or resists a private conversation with counsel is not exercising discretion. It is doing something the section forbids absent a documented medical reason.

Two Rights Specific to Nursing Homes

The section carries a further list that applies to nursing home patients rather than to every health facility, and two of those entries are worth knowing before they are needed.

A nursing home patient has the right to have their spouse, next of kin, or patient’s representative stay at the facility 24 hours a day where the patient is considered terminally ill by the physician responsible for their care, a physician’s assistant under a practice agreement, or an advanced practice registered nurse. Families are often given visiting hours instead, at exactly the point the statute stops applying them.

Each nursing home patient also has the right to receive representatives of approved organizations, as provided in MCL 333.21763. A facility discouraging or screening those visits is worth noting alongside the rest of a timeline.

Care That Seems to Track the Payment Source

A resident may not be denied appropriate care on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual preference, or source of payment. The last item on that list is the one families notice without knowing it is prohibited.

Changes in attentiveness that coincide with a shift from private pay to Medicaid, or with a coverage question, are worth writing down with dates. So is a facility raising payment in a conversation about care. Patterns like that are hard to reconstruct later and straightforward to record as they happen.

A written timeline kept by a family is often the most useful document in a nursing home case, and it is worth having one reviewed early. We are glad to look at it with you before anything is filed. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

When a Family Suspects Something Is Wrong

Statutory rights are only useful where somebody notices they were ignored, and the noticing usually falls to a family that is already stretched. We represent residents and their families at Neumann Law Group in Michigan nursing home negligence matters, one part of our Michigan personal injury practice, across the state from Traverse City to Detroit. We are happy to talk it through with you. Call (800) 525-6386 or contact our office.

The obviousness of a hazard no longer decides whether a Michigan property owner owed a duty to the person hurt by it. That question moved to two later elements of a negligence case, and the practical consequence is that a case which once ended on a motion now usually reaches a factfinder. The exposure did not disappear, though. It relocated.

The Michigan Supreme Court made the change in Kandil-Elsayed v F & E Oil, Inc., decided July 28, 2023 together with Pinsky v Kroger Co of Michigan. A land possessor owes a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect invitees from an unreasonable risk of harm caused by a dangerous condition of the land, and the open and obvious nature of a condition is now analyzed as part of breach and comparative fault rather than duty.

What the Court Actually Overruled

The decision overruled Lugo v Ameritech Corp in two identified respects, and the distinction between them matters when reading older material.

The first is the one usually described. Lugo made the open and obvious danger doctrine part of a land possessor’s duty, and the Court overruled that, holding instead that obviousness is relevant to breach and to the parties’ comparative fault.

The second is stated more narrowly than it is often repeated. The Court overruled the special-aspects doctrine, under which a possessor could be liable for an open and obvious condition only where the invitee produced evidence of special aspects such as a condition being effectively unavoidable or presenting a substantial risk of death or severe injury. The syllabus records that it was overruled to the extent it was inconsistent with the standard in § 343A of the Second Restatement of Torts, which asks whether the land possessor should have anticipated the harm.

Both cases arrived the same way, which is part of why they were heard together. Kandil-Elsayed slipped and fell on snow and ice at a gas station in a Wayne Circuit Court case. Renee Pinsky tripped over a cable strung from a checkout counter to a display basket in Washtenaw Circuit Court. In each, the defendant moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10) on the ground that the hazard was open and obvious with no special aspects, so no duty was owed.

The Court concluded that each defendant did owe the injured plaintiff a duty of care, and that genuine issues of material fact remained. Neither case was decided on the merits. Both were returned to be litigated under the framework the decision announced, which is what a shift from duty to breach produces in practice.

The Standard That Replaced Special Aspects

The replacement is an anticipation-of-harm test taken from the Second Restatement. Where a land possessor should anticipate the harm that results from an open and obvious condition, despite its obviousness, the possessor is not relieved of the duty of reasonable care.

That standard is broader than the two illustrations Lugo had offered. A hazard need not be effectively unavoidable or life-threatening for the duty to survive. It needs to be one whose harm a reasonable possessor should have anticipated, which is a question about foreseeability in the ordinary sense rather than a narrow category.

The Court also noted that the Third Restatement has largely eliminated status-based categories in favor of one general duty of reasonable care, and declined to follow it. The Second Restatement approach remains the governing approach in Michigan, so the invitee, licensee, and trespasser distinctions continue to apply. Our Michigan premises liability page sets out how those categories change what a property owner owes.

Obviousness Now Routes Into Comparative Fault

Moving obviousness out of duty did not make it harmless to a claim. MCL 600.2959 requires a court to reduce damages by the injured person’s percentage of comparative fault. Where that percentage is greater than the aggregate fault of everyone else, whether or not they are parties, economic damages are reduced accordingly and noneconomic damages are not awarded at all.

A hazard that is genuinely obvious is evidence that the person who encountered it bore some responsibility for doing so. Under the old rule that observation ended the case at the duty stage. Under the current one it becomes an argument for allocating a majority of fault to the plaintiff, which reaches the same result for pain and suffering by a different route.

What changed is who decides and when. A jury now weighs obviousness alongside everything else, rather than a judge treating it as dispositive on the papers, and that shift is worth something real. It is not the same as obviousness ceasing to matter.

What This Means for an Older Slip and Fall Page or Letter

Material written before July 2023 that describes special aspects as the only path around an open and obvious hazard is describing law that no longer governs. So is an insurer’s denial letter built on that framework, and those letters still circulate.

The reverse error is now common too. A claim is not strong merely because Lugo was overruled, since breach, causation, damages, and the fault allocation all remain to be proved. Both readings overstate what one decision did, in opposite directions. Our page on slip and fall accidents in Michigan covers what proof a premises case still needs.

A denial letter resting on special aspects is applying a rule the Supreme Court retired in 2023. Those letters are worth a second read. Call our office at (800) 525-6386 and we will walk through it with you.

Reassessing a Fall Claim Under the Current Rule

The framework changed recently enough that older guidance is still in circulation and still persuading people not to pursue claims. At Neumann Law Group, we handle Michigan personal injury claims for people hurt on other people’s property throughout the state, including Grand Traverse County, Kent County, and Wayne County. Call us at (800) 525-6386 or contact our office to arrange a consultation.

Michigan has no living will statute. The document that does that work here is the patient advocate designation, and it does it by appointing a person rather than by stating instructions, which means the person’s authority is what the statute regulates. The regulation is specific about the one decision families most need the document for.

MCL 700.5509(1)(e) provides that a patient advocate may make a decision to withhold or withdraw treatment that would allow a patient to die only if the patient has expressed in a clear and convincing manner that the advocate is authorized to make such a decision, and that the patient acknowledges that such a decision could or would allow the patient’s death. A designation that names an advocate and stops there does not confer that power.

The Authorization Has to Be in the Document

The standard is clear and convincing, and the subject is the patient’s own expression. What a family member believes the patient would have wanted is not the test. What the patient expressed, in a manner that meets the standard, is, and the practical place for that expression is the designation itself, in language that names the decision and acknowledges its consequence.

The two halves of the subsection are separate requirements. The patient must have authorized the advocate to make the decision, and the patient must have acknowledged that the decision could or would allow death. A form that grants broad authority without the acknowledgment is short by one element.

The same statute lets a designation carry a statement of the patient’s desires on care, custody, and treatment under MCL 700.5507, along with instructions about how the advocate is to decide. That statement is where the clear and convincing expression is written, and our Michigan durable power of attorney page explains how the financial and healthcare documents are drafted alongside one another.

The Other Limits the Statute Imposes

The advocate acts under the standards of care applicable to fiduciaries and must take reasonable steps to follow the desires, instructions, or guidelines the patient gave while able to participate, whether given orally or in the designation. An advocate may not exercise powers the patient could not have exercised on the patient’s own behalf.

Two limits are absolute. The designation cannot be used to withhold or withdraw treatment from a pregnant patient where doing so would result in the patient’s death. And an advocate may not delegate the powers to another individual without the patient’s prior authorization, so a designated advocate who becomes unavailable does not hand the role to someone else unless the document provides for it.

Mental health decisions carry their own clear and convincing requirement. The advocate may consent to forced administration of medication or to inpatient hospitalization, other than as a formal voluntary patient, only if the patient expressed in a clear and convincing manner that the advocate is authorized to consent to that treatment. Hospice care may be chosen without a separate expression.

The Authority Switches On, and Switches Off

None of these powers is exercisable at signing. Under MCL 700.5508, the advocate’s authority begins only when the patient is unable to participate in treatment decisions, and that inability is determined by the attending physician together with another physician or a licensed psychologist, on examination, in writing, entered in the medical record, and reviewed at least annually.

A dispute about that determination has a fast statutory track. A petition may be filed in the court of the county where the patient resides or is located, the court appoints a guardian ad litem for the patient, a hearing is held as soon as possible and not later than seven days after the petition is received, and the court decides as soon as possible and not later than seven days after the hearing.

The authority also ends on its own. Under MCL 700.5509(2), a designation is suspended when the patient regains the ability to participate in decisions, and it stays suspended for as long as the patient is able to. A later determination of inability revives it. The document does not transfer decision-making permanently, only for the period the patient cannot decide.

Who May Witness It

The execution rules in MCL 700.5506 are where designations most often fail on paper. The document must be in writing, signed, dated, executed voluntarily, witnessed by two people, and made part of the medical record before it is implemented. The witness list is long and specific.

A witness may not be the patient’s spouse, parent, child, grandchild, sibling, presumptive heir, or known devisee at the time of witnessing, and may not be the patient’s physician or the patient advocate. Nor may a witness be an employee of a life or health insurance provider for the patient, of a health facility treating the patient, of a home for the aged where the patient resides, or of a community mental health program or hospital providing the patient mental health services. A witness may not sign unless the patient appears to be of sound mind and under no duress, fraud, or undue influence.

A designation signed at a kitchen table with two adult children as witnesses has two disqualified witnesses. The document fails on a formality that would have taken two neighbors to satisfy. One call is usually enough for us to tell you where things stand. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Writing the Authorization the Statute Requires

The difference between a designation that works at the bedside and one that does not is usually a sentence, and the statute says what the sentence has to accomplish. We draft patient advocate designations at Neumann Law Group as part of our Michigan estate planning work for clients across Northern Michigan and statewide. We are glad to talk through any of these questions. Call (800) 525-6386 or send us a message and we will get back to you.

Michigan drivers have been choosing how much personal injury protection coverage to carry since policies issued or renewed after July 1, 2020. The choice was presented as a premium decision. It is also a decision about who pays for catastrophic care, and the answer when a chosen limit is exhausted is not the one most drivers assume.

A driver whose coverage runs out is not simply left with the balance. MCL 500.3135(3)(c) preserves tort liability against the at-fault driver for allowable expenses, work loss, and survivor’s loss, including all future allowable expenses and work loss, in excess of the applicable limit. The excess becomes a claim against the person who caused the crash.

The Coverage Levels the Statute Actually Sets

MCL 500.3107c(1) sets four coverage levels, and a driver selects one when a policy is issued or renewed. They are a limit of $50,000 per individual per loss occurrence, $250,000, $500,000, or no limit at all.

The $50,000 level is not open to everyone. It is available only where the applicant or named insured is enrolled in Medicaid, and where their spouse and any resident relative has qualified health coverage, is enrolled in Medicaid, or carries their own no-fault PIP.

Whichever level is selected applies to the named insured, their spouse, and any relative of either domiciled in the same household, along with anyone else with a right to claim benefits under the policy. Where benefits are payable under two or more policies, subsection (6) caps them at an aggregate equal to the highest available limit under any one of those policies rather than adding them together.

Insurers carrying one of the capped tiers must also offer a rider providing attendant care above the applicable limit. That rider is the provision most relevant to a catastrophic injury, and whether it was offered and declined is worth establishing from the file rather than from memory.

Two further options sit outside that section, which is why the choice is often described as six options rather than four. A complete election not to maintain PIP is made under MCL 500.3107d, and a coordination exclusion runs through MCL 500.3109a(2). The distinction matters because the consequences of exhausting a tier and the consequences of electing out are not the same, as the next section shows. Our Michigan No-Fault Insurance Guide sets out how each option interacts with health insurance.

What the At-Fault Driver Still Owes

The excess claim under MCL 500.3135(3)(c) is the provision most worth understanding before a limit is chosen. Where a driver carries a $250,000 tier and a brain injury exhausts it, the allowable expenses and work loss above that figure remain recoverable from the at-fault driver, and the statute says so for future expenses as well as incurred ones.

The claim is broader still where a driver elected out under MCL 500.3107d, or where a MCL 500.3109a(2) exclusion applies. In those cases the statute allows recovery of allowable expenses without limit, rather than only the amount above a tier.

One offset applies. The party liable for damages is entitled to a reduction equal to the taxes that would have been payable on the income the injured person would have earned had they not been injured, so a work loss recovery is calculated on an after-tax basis.

Whether a tier was exhausted is a question the declarations page answers in about a minute, and we are glad to read one for you. We talk these questions through with you. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

The Opt-Out Carries a 30-Day Cliff

An election not to maintain PIP under MCL 500.3107d(1) is available to a qualified person whose spouse and resident relatives have qualified health coverage or their own no-fault PIP. The insurer must be given a document from the health coverage provider naming everyone covered.

Subsection (3)(e) is the part that catches people, and the form is required to disclose it in a conspicuous manner. Where the qualified health coverage ceases during the policy term, the person has 30 days after the termination takes effect to obtain PIP coverage. Missing that window excludes them from all personal protection benefits for the period the coverage was not maintained.

A job change, a plan termination, or a spouse’s coverage lapsing can start that clock without anyone connecting it to auto insurance. The exclusion is not a penalty a court weighs. It follows from the statute.

What Happens When No Valid Selection Was Made

The statute anticipates that the paperwork will sometimes be missing or defective, and the consequences favor the insured. MCL 500.3107c(2) requires the form to state the benefits and risks of each option conspicuously, to let the applicant mark that they read and understood the options, to allow the selection to be marked, and to be signed.

Where no effective selection was made but a premium or installment was paid, subsection (3) creates a rebuttable presumption that the amount paid accurately reflects the coverage level applicable to the policy. The presumption can be argued with, and the premium records are what it turns on.

Where no effective selection was made and that presumption does not apply, subsection (4) provides that subsection (1)(d) governs the policy. Subsection (1)(d) is the unlimited option. A defective or absent selection can therefore leave a policy with no PIP cap at all, which is the reverse of what an adjuster describing a capped tier will usually assume.

Coverage decisions made at renewal, often by phone and often to reduce a premium, are rarely remembered accurately years later. The declarations page and the signed selection form are the record, and obtaining both early is the difference between arguing about a limit and establishing one. At Neumann Law Group, we handle Michigan personal injury claims arising from motor vehicle collisions for drivers throughout the state.

Finding Out What a Policy Actually Covers

An exhausted PIP limit is the point where a no-fault claim becomes a claim against a person rather than an insurer, and the two are proved differently. At Neumann Law Group, we represent injured drivers and passengers from Traverse City, Grand Rapids, and Detroit. If you would like us to look at your situation, call (800) 525-6386 or contact us through our website.

Michigan’s no-fault act sets more than one deadline, and the two that matter most in a personal injury protection claim both run for a year while doing completely different jobs. One decides when a lawsuit can still be filed. The other decides how far back the benefits reach once it is.

MCL 500.3145(1) bars an action for PIP benefits later than one year after the date of the accident, subject to two exceptions that reopen it. Subsection (2) carries the second rule, and it is the one that quietly costs money. A claimant cannot recover benefits for any portion of the loss incurred more than one year before the date the action was commenced, however timely the filing itself was.

The One-Year Deadline and Its Two Exceptions

The one-year bar is not absolute, and a great deal turns on that. An action filed more than a year after the accident survives where written notice of injury was given to the insurer within one year after the accident, or where the insurer has already made a payment of PIP benefits for that injury.

The notice itself is a modest document. Under subsection (4), it may be given by the claimant or by someone acting on their behalf, and it must give the claimant’s name and address and state, in ordinary language, the name of the person injured and the time, place, and nature of the injury. A letter meeting that description, sent inside the first year, changes which rule governs the case.

Where notice was given or a payment was made, subsection (2) allows the action to be commenced at any time within one year after the most recent allowable expense, work loss, or survivor’s loss was incurred. For an injury that generates ongoing treatment, that can extend the filing window well past the anniversary of the crash. At Neumann Law Group, our personal injury attorneys handle Michigan car accident claims from Grand Traverse County to Wayne County, and this is the provision most often missed by someone who assumed the claim had expired.

What the One-Year-Back Rule Actually Limits

The one-year-back rule is a limit on recovery rather than a limit on time. Even where the action is properly commenced, the claimant may not recover benefits for any portion of the loss incurred more than one year before the date of commencement.

The practical effect is that delay costs money on a claim that never becomes untimely. Someone who is treated for two years, then files suit, has a live claim and a recovery reaching back only 12 months from the filing date. The earlier bills do not become disputed. They fall outside what the statute permits the court to award.

The mistake I see most often is not a missed filing date. It is a claimant who waited, filed inside the deadline, and then learned that a year of medical expenses sat outside the window the statute allows.

Subsection (5) adds a third one-year rule that behaves unlike the other two. An action for recovery of property protection insurance benefits may not be commenced later than one year after the accident, and the statute attaches no notice exception and no payment exception to it. That period is flat.

When the Clock Stops

Subsection (3) tolls the limitations period under subsection (2) from the date a specific claim for payment is made until the date the insurer formally denies that claim. An insurer sitting on a claim does not run out the clock by doing so.

The tolling carries a condition worth reading closely. It does not apply where the person claiming benefits fails to pursue the claim with reasonable diligence. Submitting a claim and then going quiet is not the same as pursuing it, and the burden of showing diligence sits with the claimant.

A formal denial is the event that restarts the period. Ambiguous correspondence from an adjuster, a request for more records, or a partial payment is not a denial, and treating one as though it were can cost a claimant months of tolling they were entitled to.

The Tort Claim Runs on Its Own Clock

Michigan claimants are frequently told they have three years, and for one kind of claim that is right. Sorting out which period governs which claim is the first thing worth doing in any Michigan personal injury matter arising from a collision, because the answer differs by claim within the same crash. MCL 600.5805(2) sets a three-year period for actions to recover damages for injury to a person or property. That is the period for a tort claim against the at-fault driver.

It is not the period for PIP benefits. Those come from a claimant’s own insurer under the no-fault act, and MCL 500.3145 governs them. The two run side by side on the same crash, and applying the three-year figure to the benefits claim is the most common way a Michigan no-fault claim is lost. Both deadlines, along with PIP coverage tiers after the 2019 reform, are covered on our Michigan No-Fault Insurance Guide.

MCL 500.3145 was itself amended by the 2019 reform, so a policy or an article written before June 2019 may describe a structure that no longer governs. Anything a claimant reads about no-fault deadlines is worth dating before it is relied on.

Nothing about the structure is obvious from an insurance policy, and the deadlines start running before most people have finished treatment. If that is where your situation sits, call us at (800) 525-6386.

Checking Which Clock Is Running on a Claim

A PIP claim can be timely and still be worth substantially less than it should be, which is a distinction the statute draws and an adjuster has no reason to explain. We represent injured drivers and passengers at Neumann Law Group across Michigan, from Detroit and Grand Rapids to Traverse City. Call our office at (800) 525-6386, or contact us online, and we will talk it through with you.

A Michigan workers’ compensation case that ends in a redemption produces one check, and Social Security treats that check as if it were still being paid out week by week. The offset that reduces disability benefits does not stop at the settlement, and the size of the reduction turns on parts of the agreement most people never read again after the magistrate signs it.

The federal rule, 42 U.S.C. § 424a, caps combined Social Security disability and workers’ compensation at the higher of 80 percent of average current earnings or the unreduced Social Security benefit, and 20 C.F.R. § 404.408 supplies the mechanics.

Two of those mechanics run in the claimant’s favor. Under § 404.408(d), amounts paid or to be paid for medical, legal, or related expenses connected with the workers’ compensation claim or the injury are excluded before the reduction is computed. Under § 404.408(l), the earnings figure that sets the ceiling is redetermined on a fixed schedule, and the redetermination can only raise what is payable.

Neumann Law Group reads redemption paperwork with the federal reduction in view for Michigan Social Security Disability clients from Wayne County to Grand Traverse County, because the same three pages settle the workers’ compensation case and set the disability benefit for years afterward. The offset itself is explained on the pages linked below, and this is about the three provisions that decide how much of a settlement it reaches.

Why a Lump Sum Does Not Escape the Reduction

Under MCL 418.835, once six months have passed from the date of a personal injury, any liability resulting from it may be redeemed by payment of a lump sum by agreement of the parties, subject to approval by a workers’ compensation magistrate. The magistrate may also, where special circumstances require it, direct that deferred payments be commuted to a lump sum at their present worth at 10 percent per year. The carrier must notify the employer of a proposed redemption at least 10 business days before the hearing on it.

The federal regulation anticipates exactly that document. Section 404.408(g) provides that where public disability benefits are paid in a lump sum as a commutation of or a substitute for periodic benefits, “such as a compromise and release settlement,” the reduction is made at the times and in the amounts the agency determines will approximate as nearly as practicable the monthly reduction. A redemption is therefore spread back out over a period and offset month by month, and the agreement’s own terms are what the agency spreads.

The Expenses the Offset Never Counts

Section 404.408(d) excludes from the computation the amounts paid, incurred, or to be incurred by the worker for medical, legal, or related expenses in connection with the claim or with the injury the settlement is based on. The exclusion holds to the extent those amounts are consistent with the applicable law and reflect either expenses already incurred or a reasonable estimate of future ones. The same paragraph then states the limit. Expenses not established by the evidence the agency requires, or not reflecting a reasonable estimate of actual future expenses, “will not be excluded.”

The regulation names the proof it will accept. The expenses may be shown by the award or compromise agreement itself, by a court order, by a detailed statement from the worker’s attorney, physician, or the employer’s insurance carrier, by bills, receipts, or canceled checks, or by other clear and convincing evidence, in any combination. A redemption that states one gross figure with no allocation gives the agency nothing to exclude. One that states the attorney fee, the medical costs the worker has already paid, and a documented estimate of future treatment gives it three figures to subtract before the offset is run.

Because MCL 418.835 allows any liability from the injury to be redeemed, a Michigan redemption often closes the employer’s medical liability along with wage loss, and the worker’s estimated future medical cost is the excludable item most often left unstated. It is also the one a treating physician’s written estimate can establish.

Whether an agreement already signed says enough to support an exclusion is a question the agreement answers in about a page, and we read one against § 404.408(d) before the disability claim is filed. We are glad to look at it with you before anything is filed. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Whose Benefit Absorbs the Reduction First

The reduction lands on the family before it lands on the worker. Section 404.408(h)(2) provides that where a reduction is made in the total benefits payable on a worker’s earnings record, each benefit except the disability insurance benefit is first proportionately decreased, and only the excess is applied to the worker’s own benefit. The regulation’s own example shows a spouse’s and two children’s benefits reduced to zero while the worker’s benefit is reduced by the remainder.

A change in the family changes the arithmetic. Under § 404.408(i), the addition or subtraction of a beneficiary can cause the total family benefit to become, or cease to be, the applicable limit, and the reduction is recalculated as though the new number of beneficiaries had been entitled from the first month it was imposed. The benefit the family is dividing is computed under the formula on our how much SSDI pays page, and the floor described on the workers’ compensation offset page still holds, so the worker’s own benefit is never reduced below what it would have been standing alone.

The Ceiling Is Redetermined, and Only Upward

Average current earnings is not fixed for the life of the offset. Under § 404.408(l), in the second calendar year after the year the reduction was first required, and in every third year after that, the benefits still subject to reduction are redetermined, and the regulation conditions the redetermination on its not decreasing the total payable. The recalculation multiplies the original average current earnings by the ratio of the national average of total wages for the year before the redetermination to the same average for the year before the reduction was first computed, rounded down to the dollar, and the result takes effect the following January.

The regulation’s worked example applies a ratio of 1.174 and produces a higher family payment than the cost-of-living increases alone had. A Michigan worker whose offset began in 2023 is due a redetermination in 2025 and again in 2028, and each one arrives as a notice from the agency stating the figure it used. Those notices are worth checking against the original computation rather than filing.

Three Provisions Worth Checking in a Signed Redemption

Three provisions of one regulation decide how much of a redemption the offset reaches, and all three depend on what the agreement says and what the file proves. At Neumann Law Group, we handle Social Security Disability claims alongside workers’ compensation matters for injured workers across Michigan, and a first review of a proposed or signed redemption is part of that work. We are happy to talk it through with you. Call (800) 525-6386 or contact our office.

Michigan asks a driver stopped on suspicion of operating while intoxicated to blow into a device twice, at two different points, under two different statutes. Refusing the first carries a civil infraction. Refusing the second costs a year of driving. Most people treat them as one decision, and the two are not close.

The roadside device is the preliminary chemical breath analysis, governed by MCL 257.625a. A peace officer with reasonable cause to believe a driver’s ability may have been affected by alcohol, a controlled substance, or another intoxicating substance may request it at the scene, and a driver who refuses on a lawful request is responsible for a civil infraction.

What the Roadside Test Is Actually For

The preliminary test is an investigative tool rather than the evidence a prosecution is built on. An officer may arrest a person based in whole or in part on its results, which is its practical function at the roadside.

Its results are admissible, but for defined purposes. The statute makes them admissible in a criminal prosecution for a crime enumerated in MCL 257.625c(1) and in an administrative hearing, for the specific purposes the section lists rather than as general proof of intoxication.

Submitting to it changes nothing about what comes later. A person who takes the preliminary test remains subject to the requirements of MCL 257.625c, 625d, 625e, and 625f for the chemical tests those sections describe. Blowing at the roadside is not compliance with the evidentiary test, and declining at the roadside is not a refusal of it.

Refusing Each One Costs Something Different

A civil infraction for refusing the preliminary test is a fine and a record entry. It is not a criminal charge, it does not carry jail, and it does not by itself suspend a license.

Refusing the evidentiary chemical test after arrest is a different matter entirely. Under MCL 257.625f, a driver who refuses and does not request a hearing within 14 days of the notice loses the license for one year, and for two years on a second or subsequent refusal within seven years. Six points are entered under MCL 257.320a(8), though no additional points attach for the same offense where a conviction arises from the same incident.

That sanction is independent of the criminal case. It applies whether or not the charge results in a conviction, which is what makes the 14-day window worth calendaring the day it is handed over. Our page on Michigan OWI defense covers how the two tracks are handled together.

One Carve-Out for Commercial Drivers

The civil infraction treatment of a preliminary test refusal carries an exception. For an operator of a commercial motor vehicle, the statute treats refusal of a preliminary chemical breath analysis as a misdemeanor rather than a civil infraction, and it provides for an operator to be ordered out of service.

A commercial license therefore changes the roadside calculation rather than only the consequences of a conviction. A driver holding one is deciding about a criminal charge at the roadside, not an infraction.

The distinction matters in a region where a large share of drivers hold a commercial endorsement they rarely think about while driving a personal vehicle. Whether the endorsement is in play depends on what is being driven and what the statute defines as a commercial motor vehicle.

The Right to a Test of Your Own

A provision in the same section is worth knowing before the station test is administered rather than after. A person who takes a chemical test at a peace officer’s request must be given a reasonable opportunity to have a person of their own choosing administer one of the chemical tests described in the section, within a reasonable time after detention.

The results of that independent test are admissible and must be considered along with other admissible evidence. It is not a substitute for the officer’s test and it does not cancel it, but it produces a second data point taken by someone the driver selected.

The chemical test itself must be administered at the request of a peace officer having reasonable grounds to believe the person committed a crime described in MCL 257.625c(1). Whether those grounds existed is a separate question from what the machine reported, and both are open to examination.

Why the Sequence Is Worth Reconstructing

A defense that turns on the tests begins with the order of events, not with the numbers. When the officer formed reasonable cause, what was requested, what was said, when the arrest occurred, when the evidentiary test was offered, and when the notice of refusal was served are separate facts with separate consequences.

Those facts are recorded in places that are easier to obtain early. The report, the in-car and body camera footage, the device logs, and the notice itself all exist from the first day, and reconstructing the sequence from memory months later is far harder than requesting it while it is current.

People routinely tell us they refused, when what they declined was the roadside device and they later provided a sample at the station. The two answers lead to different cases, and sorting out which happened is often the first useful thing to do. Call our office at (800) 525-6386 and we will walk through it with you.

After a Stop That Involved a Breath Test

The licensing consequence moves faster than the criminal case and is decided somewhere else, which is why it is the part most often lost by default. Fourteen days is the number to act on. Our Michigan criminal defense work at Neumann Law Group covers district courts throughout Northern Michigan and statewide. Call us at (800) 525-6386 or contact our office to arrange a consultation.

Michigan divides the marital estate equitably and generally leaves each spouse’s separate property alone. Two statutes cut into that second rule, and they do so on grounds that have nothing to do with whether the property was ever mixed with marital funds. A spouse who kept an inheritance entirely apart can still find part of it awarded to the other side.

MCL 552.401 is the first route. It lets a court award to one party all or a portion of property owned by the other spouse, as appears equitable under all the circumstances, where the evidence shows that the party contributed to the acquisition, improvement, or accumulation of that property. The second route, in MCL 552.23, turns on need rather than contribution.

Contribution to Acquisition, Improvement, or Accumulation

The contribution route asks a factual question about the property itself. Did the spouse who does not own it contribute to acquiring it, improving it, or accumulating it? Where the evidence says yes, the court has authority to award all or part of it, and the measure is what appears equitable under all the circumstances of the case.

Contribution is read broadly in practice, and the statute’s three verbs are deliberately different. Acquisition reaches the purchase. Improvement reaches what was done to the asset afterward, which is where a spouse’s labor on a house or a cottage usually enters. Accumulation reaches growth over time, which is the argument made about a business or an investment account that one spouse owned before the marriage and both spouses worked to build.

This is a different mechanism from commingling, and the two are often run together. Commingling asks whether separate property lost its separate character by being mixed with marital funds. Section 401 assumes the property stayed separate and reaches it anyway, on the strength of what the other spouse put in. Our Michigan property division page sets out how the marital-versus-separate line is drawn in the first place.

Insufficiency for Suitable Support

MCL 552.23(1) opens a second door on entry of a judgment of divorce or separate maintenance. Where the estate and effects awarded to either party are insufficient for the suitable support and maintenance of that party, and of any children committed to their care, the court may also award part of the real and personal estate of either party, and spousal support out of that estate.

The statute names what the court weighs. It acts after considering the ability of either party to pay, the character and situation of the parties, and all the other circumstances of the case. The award may be made in gross or otherwise, as the court considers just and reasonable.

The sequencing matters. The court first divides what is marital, then asks whether the result leaves one spouse without suitable support, and only then reaches into separate property to fill the gap. A spouse arguing under this section is arguing about need after the ordinary division, not about fairness of the division itself.

Property That Came by Reason of the Marriage

A third provision is narrower and older. MCL 552.19 permits a court, on annulment, divorce, or separate maintenance, to make a further judgment restoring to either party the whole or such part as it considers just and reasonable of the real and personal estate that came to either party by reason of the marriage, or to award the value of it to be paid in money.

The phrase by reason of the marriage does the limiting. It reaches property one spouse received because the marriage existed, which is a smaller category than property acquired during it, and the remedy is restoration rather than division.

Together, the three sections describe the whole of what a Michigan court may do with property that is not marital. Contribution reaches separate property that the other spouse helped build. Need reaches it where the ordinary award leaves someone short. Restoration returns what the marriage itself brought.

The Decree Transfers Title by Itself

An award under section 401 does not wait on a deed. The statute provides that the decree, upon becoming final, has the same force and effect as a quitclaim deed of the real estate, if any, or a bill of sale of the personal property, if any, given by the party’s spouse to the party.

The practical effect is that a judgment awarding part of a spouse’s separately titled house or account transfers the interest on its own terms. A spouse who refuses to sign afterward has not prevented anything, and a title search will eventually find the judgment where it would have found a deed.

That effect also means the language of the judgment is the document that matters. A vague award produces a vague transfer, and it is easier to write the description precisely at judgment than to litigate what it meant years later.

Separate property is often the largest asset in a Northern Michigan divorce, and whether it is reachable is settled by evidence rather than by the name on the title. That evidence is worth assembling early. One call is usually enough for us to tell you where things stand. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Reading a Decree for What It Actually Transfers

An award that reaches separate property has to be proved under one of these sections, and a judgment that grants one has to be drafted so it transfers what was meant. We handle Michigan family law matters at Neumann Law Group in circuit courts from Grand Traverse County to Wayne County, and spousal support questions that follow a property award are covered on our Michigan alimony page. We are glad to talk through any of these questions. Call (800) 525-6386 or send us a message and we will get back to you.

Michigan’s no-fault act limits when an injured person can recover noneconomic damages from the driver who caused a crash. The limit is often described as a body of case law that has to be read carefully, and for many years that was accurate. Since the 2019 reform it is a statutory test with three written elements.

MCL 500.3135(1) preserves tort liability for noneconomic loss only where the injured person has suffered death, serious impairment of body function, or permanent serious disfigurement. Those are three separate routes, and only the middle one runs through the test that subsection (5) defines.

The Three Elements, All of Which Must Be Met

A serious impairment of body function is an impairment that satisfies all three requirements in MCL 500.3135(5). Meeting two is not enough, and the elements are proved with different kinds of evidence.

The impairment must be objectively manifested, which the statute defines as observable or perceivable from actual symptoms or conditions by someone other than the injured person. That is broader than an imaging result. A limp a physical therapist records, a range-of-motion measurement, or a documented weakness all fit the definition, and the statute does not require that the impairment appear on an MRI or an X-ray.

It must be an impairment of an important body function, which the statute defines as a body function of great value, significance, or consequence to the injured person. The reference point is the person, not a general list, so a hand injury may be important in a way that depends on what that person’s hand does.

And it must affect the injured person’s general ability to lead their normal life, meaning it has had an influence on some of their capacity to live in their normal manner of living. The word is some, not all.

Permanent serious disfigurement is a separate route to the same recovery, and subsection (5) does not define it. The three elements above govern serious impairment of body function only, so a disfigurement claim is not measured against objective manifestation or against an effect on normal life. Death is the third route and is not measured against them either.

There Is No Minimum Duration

The statute settles a question that used to be argued in every case. Although temporal considerations may be relevant, MCL 500.3135(5)(c) states that there is no temporal requirement for how long an impairment must last.

An insurer arguing that an injury resolved too quickly to count is arguing against the text. Duration is evidence bearing on how much a life was affected. It is not a threshold the claimant has to clear, and Neumann Law Group meets that argument most often in Michigan concussion and soft-tissue claims.

The statute also directs how the question is examined. It is inherently fact and circumstance specific to each injured person, must be conducted case by case, and requires comparison of the injured person’s life before and after the incident. That last instruction is the practical one, because it means the proof is largely built from what a person did before the crash, and the records establishing that are usually not medical.

That before-and-after record is far easier to assemble in the first months after a crash than in the second year. We talk these questions through with you. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Judge or Jury Is Decided by Statute Too

Whether the threshold question reaches a jury is not left to argument. Under MCL 500.3135(2)(a), the issues of serious impairment and permanent serious disfigurement are questions of law for the court where there is no factual dispute about the nature and extent of the injuries, or where a dispute exists but is not material to the determination.

One exception is written into the same provision, and it is specific. For a closed-head injury, a question of fact for the jury is created where a licensed allopathic or osteopathic physician who regularly diagnoses or treats closed-head injuries testifies under oath that there may be a serious neurological injury.

The standard in that exception is deliberately low. The physician testifies that there may be a serious neurological injury, not that there is one, and the qualification attaches to a doctor who regularly diagnoses or treats these injuries rather than to any physician. Securing that testimony is often what keeps a head injury case from being decided on the papers.

Two Ways the Claim Fails Regardless

Clearing the threshold does not end the analysis. Damages are assessed on comparative fault, and under MCL 500.3135(2)(b) they must not be assessed in favor of a party who is more than 50% at fault. A claimant with a serious injury and majority fault recovers no noneconomic damages, which is covered further on our page about how fault is apportioned in Michigan.

Subsection (2)(c) is the second bar. Damages must not be assessed in favor of a party who was operating their own vehicle at the time of injury without the security the no-fault act requires. An uninsured driver injured by someone else’s negligence loses the noneconomic claim on that ground alone.

Both bars operate independently of how serious an injury is, which is why coverage status and fault are worth establishing at the outset rather than after the medical proof is assembled. The interaction between the threshold, PIP benefits, and the mini tort is set out on our Michigan No-Fault Insurance Guide.

Proving How an Injury Changed a Life

The threshold is where most Michigan auto injury claims are won or lost, and the statute rewards proof about a person’s life rather than adjectives about their injury. At Neumann Law Group, we represent injured drivers, passengers, and pedestrians in Michigan personal injury claims from Traverse City to Detroit. If you would like us to look at your situation, call (800) 525-6386 or contact us through our website.

Michigan’s DWI and sobriety courts exist because a second or third operating-while-intoxicated conviction carries license consequences that ordinary sentencing cannot soften. The program trades intensive supervision for a driving privilege that would otherwise be unavailable, and the eligibility rule is narrower than most people assume.

MCL 600.1084(4) requires a conviction history before anyone can be considered. A person must have two or more convictions under MCL 257.625(1) or (3), or one such conviction preceded by one or more convictions under a substantially corresponding law of another state or of the United States. A first offense does not qualify.

Why the Threshold Runs the Other Way From Most Programs

Diversion programs usually reserve themselves for people with no history. This one inverts that, and the inversion is deliberate. The statutory benefit is a restricted license for a driver whose record has already triggered the sanctions that follow repeat convictions, so a first-time offender has nothing the program can give them that ordinary sentencing does not.

The qualifying convictions are specific. MCL 257.625(1) is operating while intoxicated, which includes the high-BAC provision at subdivision (c), and MCL 257.625(3) is operating while visibly impaired. Local ordinances substantially corresponding to either subsection count.

Out-of-state history counts too, in one direction. A single Michigan conviction preceded by a corresponding conviction elsewhere satisfies the requirement, and the out-of-state route also reaches laws corresponding to MCL 257.625(6), the under-21 provision. Our Michigan OWI defense page sets out how those prior convictions are counted in sentencing generally.

The Restricted License Is the Point, and It Is Conditioned

The specialty court interlock program is created by the same section, and the license it produces is not automatic on admission. Before the Secretary of State issues a restricted license to a participant under MCL 257.304, the specialty court judge must certify two things.

The first is that the individual has been admitted into the program. The second is that an ignition interlock device has been installed on each motor vehicle owned or operated by that individual, or both. Every vehicle, not the one usually driven.

What the judge certifies is therefore a condition of the license rather than a recommendation attached to it, and the certification is made to the Secretary of State rather than entered on the court file alone.

The License Can Be Taken Back Summarily

Participation carries a live consequence that ordinary probation does not. Where the Secretary of State receives notification of certain occurrences under the section, the result is summary revocation or suspension of the restricted license under MCL 257.304.

Summary means what it says. The mechanism does not wait for a sentencing hearing or a probation violation calendar, so a participant who assumes the license will survive until a judge addresses it has misread the structure.

That exposure is the trade the program asks for. A participant accepts close monitoring, device reporting, and a license that can be withdrawn quickly, in exchange for driving at all during a period when a repeat offender ordinarily could not.

What a First Offender Gets Instead

A driver convicted of a standard first offense is not shut out of driving while a repeat offender waits for a program. MCL 257.319(8)(a) gives that driver a 180-day suspension with a restricted license available after the first 30 days, which arrives without any program, any interlock certification, or any supervision.

That is the reason the eligibility threshold runs where it does. The statutory benefit sobriety court delivers is a license for someone whose record has already removed the ordinary route, so extending it downward would offer nothing a first offender does not already have.

A first conviction at an alcohol content of 0.17 or more sits between the two. It draws a one-year suspension with no restricted license for 45 days and an interlock requirement after that, and it still does not satisfy the two-conviction threshold on its own.

How a Court Becomes a Sobriety Court

Not every court runs one. A DWI or sobriety court operating in Michigan, or a circuit or district court seeking to adopt one, must be certified by the State Court Administrative Office in the same manner required for a drug treatment court under MCL 600.1062(5). A court that has not been certified may not perform the functions of a DWI or sobriety court at all.

Certified courts are also required to comply with the 10 guiding principles of DWI courts promulgated by the National Center for DWI Courts, which is what makes programs in different counties resemble one another in structure while differing in capacity and scheduling.

The practical consequence for a defendant is geographic. Whether the program is available depends on the court where the case is pending, and that is a question to ask before a plea is entered rather than at sentencing. Grand Traverse County’s program is long established and well known in the region.

Counting the prior convictions correctly is the first step, because the answer decides whether the conversation is worth having at all. We are glad to look at it with you before anything is filed. Call us at (800) 525-6386.

Finding Out Whether a Case Qualifies

Eligibility turns on a conviction history that is often longer or shorter than a client believes, and out-of-state entries are the ones most often missed. We pull that history and read it against the statute as a first step. At Neumann Law Group, we take Michigan criminal defense cases throughout Northern Michigan. We are happy to talk it through with you. Call (800) 525-6386 or contact our office.

A Michigan will can leave a surviving spouse nothing, and the spouse can decline to accept that. The elective share is the mechanism, and it is smaller and more conditional than its reputation. Three separate allowances that sit outside the election are frequently worth more, and they do not require the spouse to elect anything at all.

Under MCL 700.2202(2), the surviving spouse of a Michigan domiciliary who dies with a will may file a written election either to abide by the will or to take one half of the sum or share that would have passed to the spouse had the decedent died intestate, reduced by one half of the value of all property derived by the spouse from the decedent by any means other than testate or intestate succession at death.

The Share Is Half, and Then It Is Reduced

The formula has two steps, and the second one is the one that surprises people. The starting point is not the intestate share but half of it. A spouse who would have taken the first $150,000 plus half the balance under intestacy starts the election at half of that figure.

The reduction then subtracts half the value of everything the spouse received from the decedent outside the will and outside intestacy. Joint accounts that passed by survivorship, life insurance naming the spouse, a retirement account with the spouse as beneficiary, and a home held as tenants by the entirety are all property derived from the decedent by other means, and half their value comes off the elective share.

A spouse who received a house and a policy that way may find the election produces nothing further, because the reduction exceeds the half-share. The election is a floor for a spouse left out entirely, not a supplement for a spouse who was provided for outside the will. Our Michigan wills page covers how a will and those non-probate transfers are coordinated.

One Choice, Made Alive, Within 63 Days

Subsection (3) limits the spouse to one choice unless the will plainly shows a contrary intent, and it requires the election to be exercised during the surviving spouse’s lifetime. A spouse who dies before electing has not elected, and the right does not pass to that spouse’s estate.

The deadline is short and it runs from probate events rather than from the death. The election must be made within 63 days after the date for presentment of claims, or within 63 days after service of the inventory on the surviving spouse, whichever is later. Both dates are set inside the administration, so a spouse who is not following the estate closely can miss the window without knowing it opened.

The statute builds in a safeguard. Notice of the right of election must be served on the decedent’s spouse, and proof of that notice filed with the court, unless the spouse files an election instead. A personal representative who is also a child from a prior marriage owes the surviving spouse that notice.

Three Allowances That Do Not Depend on Electing

Separate from the elective share, the surviving spouse takes three allowances that the statute describes as in addition to whatever passes by will, by intestacy, or by election. They are not chargeable against the spouse’s share and they have priority over creditors.

The homestead allowance under MCL 700.2402 is $15,000, adjusted for inflation under MCL 700.1210, and it is exempt from and has priority over all claims against the estate except administration costs and reasonable funeral and burial expenses. Where there is no surviving spouse, the decedent’s minor and dependent children divide it.

Exempt property under MCL 700.2404 gives the spouse household furniture, automobiles, furnishings, appliances, and personal effects up to $10,000 in value above any security interests, with a right to other estate assets to make up any shortfall. The family allowance under MCL 700.2403 provides reasonable maintenance during administration, payable to the spouse for the household, and the personal representative may set it in a lump sum of up to $18,000, adjusted, or in monthly installments for a year, under MCL 700.2405.

What Can and Cannot Be Planned Around

A will cannot remove the allowances, and it cannot remove the right to elect. What planning can do is change the arithmetic the election runs on, because property that passes to the spouse outside the will reduces the elective share by half its value. A decedent who wants the spouse provided for in a particular way, and the rest of the estate left to children from a prior marriage, is working with that reduction rather than against it.

Specifically devised property is protected in one respect. Under MCL 700.2405, if the estate is otherwise sufficient, property specifically devised shall not be used to satisfy homestead allowance or exempt property. A particular item left to a particular child is not the first thing reached to fund the spouse’s allowances where other assets can cover them.

The interaction of the election, the reduction, and the allowances is arithmetic, and it can be run on paper before a will is signed rather than in probate afterward. Call our office at (800) 525-6386 and we will walk through it with you.

Running the Arithmetic Before the Will Is Signed

A plan that leaves a spouse out has to account for the elective share, the reduction that shrinks it, and the three allowances that stand apart from it, and the result is usually not what the plan’s author expected. We prepare wills and trusts at Neumann Law Group for blended and second-marriage families as part of our Michigan estate planning practice across Northern Michigan and statewide. Call us at (800) 525-6386 or contact our office to arrange a consultation.