Frownfelter v Esurance Property & Casualty Insurance Company
Key claim: A custody order does not conclusively determine a child’s domicile for Michigan no-fault act purposes; Grange is overruled and courts must apply traditional domicile factors plus where the child actually spends the majority of time.
Abstract
Michigan Supreme Court opinion decided 2026-07-22. Michigan Supreme Court Lansing, Michigan
Syllabus Chief Justice: Justices: Megan K. Cavanagh Brian K. Zahra Richard H. Bernstein Elizabeth M. Welch Kyra H. Bolden Kimberly A. Thomas Noah P. Hood
This syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been Reporter of Decisions: prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. Kimberly K. Muschong
FROWNFELTER v ESURANCE PROPERTY & CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY
Docket Nos. 168356 and 168357. Argued on application for leave to appeal April 9, 2026.
Decided July 22, 2026.
Plaintiff, McKenna Frownfelter, brought an action against Esurance Property and Casualty
Insurance Company in the Oakland Circuit Court under the no-fault act, MCL 500.3101 et seq.,
seeking personal protection insurance (PIP) benefits after she was injured in a car crash as a
passenger in a vehicle owned by her father, Corey Frownfelter (Frownfelter). Esurance,
Frownfelter’s insurer, filed a third-party complaint against Frownfelter’s other insurers,
Progressive Michigan Insurance Company and Farmers Insurance Company, and against Auto-
Owners Insurance Company, which insured plaintiff’s mother, Stephanie Lawrence, contending
that they were higher priority insurers and that it was entitled to reimbursement. Plaintiff also filed
complaints against Progressive, Farmers, and Auto-Owners seeking outstanding PIP benefits.
Esurance moved for summary disposition of plaintiff’s case under MCR 2.116(C)(10), arguing
that plaintiff was domiciled with her mother at the time of the accident because she spent 75% of
her time there, making Lawrence’s insurance provider, Auto-Owners, the highest priority insurer
under MCL 500.3114(1). Auto-Owners countered that because the parents’ 2011 divorce
judgment provided for a 50/50 joint custody split and plaintiff was staying at Frownfelter’s home
at the time of the crash, plaintiff was domiciled with Frownfelter under Grange Ins Co of Mich v
Lawrence, 494 Mich 475 (2013), which held that when a family court has entered an order relating
to custody, the child’s domicile is established by operation of law for all purposes, including the
no-fault act. Grange also noted that if a custody order granted the parents an equal division of
physical custody, the child’s domicile would be the same as that of the parent with whom the child
is living at the time.
The trial court, Kwamé L. Rowe, J., entered an order denying Esurance’s motion for
summary disposition and granting Auto-Owners’ request for judgment pursuant to
MCR 2.116(I)(2). The remaining parties to the first-party complaint entered into a stipulated
judgment that preserved plaintiff’s ability to appeal the trial court’s ruling on Esurance’s motion
for summary disposition. In the meantime, plaintiff filed a tort action seeking noneconomic
damages pursuant to MCL 500.3135(3)(b) from Frownfelter, as the owner of the involved vehicle,
and requesting a declaratory judgment that the “step-down” provision in the Esurance policy,
which lowered bodily injury liability coverage from $250,000 to $20,000 for residents of
Frownfelter’s household, did not apply. Plaintiff also moved for summary disposition as to the
amount of bodily injury liability coverage Esurance was to provide to Frownfelter, arguing that because she was not a “resident” of his home at the time of the accident, Frownfelter was entitled to $250,000. Following oral arguments, the trial court denied plaintiff’s motion on the ground that she was a resident of Frownfelter’s home at the time of the accident, and it also denied plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration. The parties then entered into a stipulated judgment for $250,000, which preserved plaintiff’s right to appeal the trial court’s orders denying her motions for summary disposition and for reconsideration.
Plaintiff appealed by right, challenging the trial court’s decisions denying Esurance’s
motion for summary disposition against Auto-Owners, denying her motion for summary disposition against Esurance, and denying her motion for reconsideration. The Court of Appeals, FEENEY, J. (LETICA, P.J., concurring, and GARRETT, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), affirmed in an unpublished per curiam opinion issued February 24, 2025 (Docket Nos. 366118 and 366120), holding that plaintiff was domiciled with Frownfelter at the time of the accident pursuant to the divorce judgment and Grange and that she was a “resident” of Frownfelter’s home for purposes of the step-down provision in his Esurance policy. Plaintiff sought leave to appeal in the Supreme Court, which ordered and heard oral argument on the application. ___ Mich ___; 25 NW3d 671 (2025).
In an opinion by Justice ZAHRA, joined by Chief Justice CAVANAGH and Justices
BERNSTEIN, WELCH, BOLDEN, and HOOD, in lieu of granting leave to appeal, the Supreme Court held:
A custody order does not determine a child’s domicile for purposes of the no-fault act. The
domicile rule set forth in Grange is overruled. While a custody order serves as a starting point in ascertaining a child’s domicile, where the facts of the child’s living arrangements are clearly inconsistent with the family court’s orders, those orders should not be considered representative of the child’s domicile. Instead, courts should look to the traditional factors for determining domicile for purposes of no-fault insurance articulated in Workman v Detroit Auto Inter-Ins Exch, 404 Mich 477 (1979), and Dairyland Ins Co v Auto-Owners Ins Co, 123 Mich App 675 (1983). When the child’s parents share joint custody, courts should also consider where the child actually spends the majority of their time and where the child actually sleeps most nights of the week. These factors are not exhaustive, and no one factor is dispositive. The Court of Appeals judgment was vacated with respect to both the holding that plaintiff was domiciled with Frownfelter at the time of the accident and the holding that plaintiff was a resident of Frownfelter’s home at that time for purposes of the step-down provision in his Esurance policy, and the case was remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.
1. Determining a person’s domicile is necessary to ascertain which insurer is liable to pay
PIP benefits under MCL 500.3114(1), which limits PIP coverage for relatives of policyholders to those who are domiciled in the same household. The no-fault act does not define the term “domiciled,” but it has acquired a precise, technical meaning in Michigan’s common law. Domicile determinations for purposes of assessing insurer liability in the no-fault context are generally made by considering the factual circumstances surrounding the party’s living situation and by balancing and weighing several factors, none of which is determinative on its own. A nonexhaustive list of such factors was provided in Workman: (1) the subjective or declared intent of the person of remaining, either permanently or for an indefinite or unlimited length of time, in the place they contend
Why this matters
PIP priority under Michigan’s no-fault act hinges on which household a child is ‘domiciled’ in, which determines whose auto insurer must pay medical and wage-loss benefits after a crash. By overruling Grange, Frownfelter shifts that determination away from paper custody orders toward the child’s actual living arrangements, potentially reallocating claim exposure among insurers and affecting coverage certainty for families in shared-custody arrangements.