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The state Court of Appeals has affirmed a Macomb County judge in denying a nearly half-million dollar payout to the estate of one of the victims in the 2015 Stony Creek crash.
A three-judge panel unanimously decided that the estate of Michael Wells cannot collect a $475,000 payout as part of a consent judgment in connection with the May 2015 crash that saw three teenage boys perish.
The judges ruled the automobile exclusion applies in the State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. homeowners insurance policy for Gregory and Dawn Bobhick, an injured passenger’s parents who in effect owned the 2008 Jaguar that crashed. The youths were at the Bobchicks’ Shelby Township home before the crash. The five occupants all had blood-alcohol levels of between .024% and .086%; Dawn Bobchick has denied providing alcohol to the minors.
In upholding circuit Judge Edward Servitto, the judges say in a four-page opinion the plaintiff can’t collect in one part of the case and argue the opposite to collect in another part of the case.
The Wells estate already received $100,000 from the Bobchicks’ auto insurer on the basis of the plaintiff’s argument that the Bobchicks had an “insurable interest” in the vehicle, which was owned by an extended family member but was in effect loaned to them.
But the plaintiff argued the opposite for the case against State Farm.
The plaintiff “should not now be allowed to take the ‘wholly inconsistent’ position that the Bobchicks’ association with the subject Jaguar is so remote or attenuated that their their homeowner’s policy exclusion of coverage in connection with ownership or use of a vehicle owned or operated by, or lent to, an insured does not apply,” the judges wrote.
“The homeowners policy at issue includes an exclusion of coverage for personal liability, or payment of medical expenses of others, stemming from ‘bodily injury or property damage arising out of the ownership, maintenance, use loading or unloading of … a motor vehicle owned or operated or rented or loaned to any insured,’” they added.
The ruling “shields” the defendant from the $475,000 “in social host liability,” the judges say.
The opinion was issued May 26 after the state Supreme Court remanded the case back to the appeals court in February.
The appeals court previously ruled the argument over whether the policy’s automobile-exclusion section applied was not preserved because Servitto did not rule on it. But the high court ruled in February it was preserved because State Farm argued it in circuit court.
In addition to 17-year-old Wells of Macomb Township, killed in the May 8, 2015 crash were Jonathan Manolios, 17, and Emanuel ‘Manny’ Malaj, 17, both of Sterling Heights. Gregory Bobchick Jr., now 24, and Joseph Narra, now 25, were injured. Bobchick Jr. and Narra pleaded guilty to a charge of minor in possession, a misdemeanor.
Sheriff’s investigators determined the black Jaguar S-Type was traveling 62-72 mph in a 35 mph zone on the wrong side of Park Road when it crashed into a guard rail, rolled over five times and landed in Stony Creek at the Washington Township park.
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