One-Year Back to the Future? Amendment to Sec. 3145 Did Not Have Retroactive Effect

The amendments to the No-Fault Act that took effect on June 11, 2019, by way of 2019 PA 21 and 2019 PA 22, significantly changed the one-year-back rule.

What used to be a bright line, cutting off any expenses incurred more than one year before the date suit was filed, is now subject to tolling “from the date of a specific claim for payment of the benefits until the date the insurer formally denies the claim.” MCL 500.3145(3).

Claimants have sought to have the new rule applied to as many cases as possible. But in Mobile MRI Staffing, LLC v Meemic Ins Co, unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued January 20, 2022 (Docket No. 355162), the panel held that the 2019 amendment had no retroactive effect, and the prior version of the statute controlled.

The suit in Mobile MRI was filed after the effective date of the amendment, but the panel explained that the critical date is when the cause of action accrued, not when the suit was filed. The provider was seeking payment for services performed in July of 2018, and the panel applied the version of the statute then in effect.

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