The Michigan Pedestrian & Bicycle Accident Guide

In March 2026 the Michigan Supreme Court told insurers they had been asking the wrong question about unlicensed drivers and the assigned claims plan. That is the third ruling since 2024 to move what a person on foot or on a bike faces after a crash. Coverage, priority, and deadlines all shifted. Below, newest first, are the seven rulings and what each one changed.

Swoope v Citizens Insurance Company of the Midwest, 2026

Michigan Supreme Court, decided March 10, 2026, Docket No. 166790 (read the opinion on CourtListener)

Carlonda Swoope borrowed a friend's car without asking. She had no license and no insurance of her own. A collision left her hurt, so she applied for personal protection insurance benefits through the Michigan Assigned Claims Plan, and the plan assigned her claim to Citizens. Citizens argued the claim was barred because she had taken the vehicle unlawfully and knew it.

The Court of Appeals threw the claim out on a different ground. It reasoned that because Swoope had no driver's license, she was operating the car unlawfully. A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Bolden, said that mixed up two questions. Under MCL 500.3113(a), the statute asks whether the vehicle was taken unlawfully, not whether it was operated unlawfully. The Court reversed and sent the case back to decide the taking question.

For anyone whose claim runs through the assigned claims plan, this narrows a shortcut insurers had been reaching for. A driving offense at the moment of the crash does not answer the taking question. The court has to look at how possession of the vehicle was gained.

C-Spine Orthopedics v Progressive and Wallace v SMART, 2025

Michigan Supreme Court, decided July 3, 2025, Docket Nos. 165537, 165538, and 165964 (read the opinion on CourtListener)

Parie Wallace was hurt in a bus collision. Like a lot of injured people, she signed assignments of benefits so her medical providers could chase the bill. Then she filed her own lawsuit for those same benefits. The bus authority moved to end the case, arguing she had already given the claim away.

Justice Welch wrote for the Court. Wallace had standing, but she was not the real party in interest when she filed, because she had assigned the claims to her providers. That defect is serious. It is not always fatal. A plaintiff may be able to cure it by taking action inside the litigation, and only then does a court decide whether the fix relates back or whether the one-year-back rule cuts off recovery. Rescinding those assignments is not automatic either. Rescission is an equitable remedy a trial judge grants after weighing the equities.

Read what you sign at the clinic. A stack of intake paperwork can move the right to sue out of your hands, and untangling it later runs straight into a clock.

Estate of Charles Williamson v AAA of Michigan, 2024

Michigan Supreme Court, decided June 11, 2024, Docket No. 165131 (read the opinion on CourtListener)

Charles Williamson was struck by a car. He had no auto insurance, so he applied to the Michigan Automobile Insurance Placement Facility, which runs the assigned claims plan. His claim went to AAA. AAA refused to pay. Williamson died while the case was pending, and his daughters carried it forward as co-personal representatives. In answers to written questions during discovery, the estate claimed attendant care benefits for services said to have been provided after he died.

The Court of Appeals had held that statements made in discovery can never be fraudulent insurance acts. A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Welch, reversed. Under MCL 500.3173a(4), a false statement is a fraudulent insurance act when it supports a claim to the placement facility or to the insurer the plan assigned. Discovery answers filed after a lawsuit starts can qualify, and a claim supported by a fraudulent insurance act is ineligible for benefits under the plan.

The point is narrow and heavy. In an assigned claims case, every document counts, including the ones filed months into litigation.

Griffin v Trumbull Insurance Company, 2022

Michigan Supreme Court, decided July 15, 2022, Docket No. 162419 (read the opinion on CourtListener)

A truck merged into Willie Griffin's lane. He swerved, his motorcycle went down, and he was badly hurt. Nothing touched him. The officer wrote down the truck driver's name, phone number, and home address, but not the plate, the VIN, the owner, or the insurer. Griffin hired a lawyer, wrote to the driver, and filed a claim with his own insurer. Nobody found the truck's insurer until discovery, and by then the one-year period had run.

Justice Welch wrote for the majority. MCL 500.3114 puts the job of claiming benefits on the injured person, and claiming means putting insurers on notice and asking for payment. Diligence is required, and whether someone was diligent is decided case by case. Insurers carry duties too. The Court said the statute pushes insurers to pay first and seek reimbursement later, and that an insurer confident it is not on the hook should deny promptly so the claimant can go to the placement facility. Griffin acted diligently. Because the higher-priority insurer could not be identified before suit, his own insurer stood as the default. Justices Zahra and Viviano dissented.

For a pedestrian or cyclist, the order of insurers is a sequence, not a guess. Griffin says courts look at what you actually did to find the right one.

McCormick v Carrier, 2010

Michigan Supreme Court, decided July 31, 2010, 487 Mich 180; 795 NW2d 517 (read the opinion on CourtListener)

Rodney McCormick was on foot at a General Motors plant when a coworker backed a truck into him and drove over his left ankle. He broke the bone, had hardware surgically installed, went through months of therapy, had a second surgery, and returned to work nineteen months later.

The Court held that Kreiner v Fischer was wrongly decided because it departed from the plain language of MCL 500.3135, and overruled it. Justice Cavanagh's opinion then held that McCormick had suffered a serious impairment of body function as a matter of law.

Benefits and lawsuits are two different tracks. To pursue pain and suffering from the driver, an injured person has to clear the serious impairment threshold, and McCormick is the reading courts apply. How a jury later divides fault between the people involved is a separate fight that turns on the facts of each crash.

McKenzie v Auto Club Insurance Association, 1998

Michigan Supreme Court, decided July 14, 1998, 458 Mich 214; 580 NW2d 424 (read the opinion on CourtListener)

Francis McKenzie fell asleep in a camper trailer hitched to his pickup and was asphyxiated. He survived and sought no-fault benefits. Justice Taylor wrote that the injury was not covered, because the act reaches injuries arising out of the use of a motor vehicle as a motor vehicle, which the Court tied to the vehicle's transportational function. Justice Cavanagh dissented.

That phrase does real work in coverage fights. A person struck by a moving car in a crosswalk sits comfortably inside it. The harder cases sit at the edges, where a vehicle is parked, loading, or doing something other than carrying people.

DeMeglio v Auto Club Insurance Association, 1995

Michigan Supreme Court, decided June 20, 1995, 449 Mich 33; 534 NW2d 665 (read the opinion on CourtListener)

Marisa DeMeglio was twelve, visiting her grandparents in Oakland Township, when a car hit her bicycle. She lived in Pennsylvania. Her parents carried a Pennsylvania policy and had no Michigan no-fault coverage, and Michigan law did not require them to.

Chief Justice Brickley laid out the rule that governs most people on foot and on bikes. Under MCL 500.3115(1)(a), someone hurt in an accident involving a motor vehicle while not an occupant, who does not own and is not required to own Michigan no-fault insurance, claims benefits from the insurers of the owners or registrants of the vehicles involved. The insurer of the car that hit her was responsible. The Court then held that benefits her parents' out-of-state policy was required by law to pay counted under MCL 500.3109(1) and could be subtracted from what the Michigan insurer owed.

Two lessons for a cyclist with no car of their own. The driver's insurer is where the claim starts. Other coverage you already carry can change the math.

None of this tells you what your claim is worth or how it ends. It tells you which questions courts are asking. If a car hit you or someone in your family while you were walking or riding, call 844-ASK-AZZO (844-275-2996). Our intake team takes your information and routes your question to the right person at the firm. No pressure, and no charge to ask.

Lauren Sitto Azzo, lead attorney at Azzo Law, PLLC, is responsible for the content of this page. This section is general information about Michigan court decisions and not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.