COA 371675 ESTATE OF RONALD GIBSON, SR V TRUMBULL INSURANCE COMPANY Opinion - Per Curiam - Unpublished 4/16/2026

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.
-1-
S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N
C O U R T O F A P P E A L S
RONALD GIBSON, JR., Personal Representative of
the ESTATE OF RONALD GIBSON, SR.,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
UNPUBLISHED
April 16, 2026
11:07 AM
v No. 371675
Wayne Circuit Court
TRUMBULL INSURANCE COMPANY, LC No. 22-009026-NF
Defendant-Appellant.
Before: CAMERON, P.J., and BORRELLO and SWARTZLE, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Plaintiff1 was involved in a single-car automobile accident and sued defendant for breach
of contract and violation of statutory duties by failing to pay no-fault benefits. Defendant moved
for summary disposition arguing that plaintiff was not entitled to no-fault benefits because his
injuries did not arise out of the operation of the motor vehicle but rather resulted from a ruptured
aneurysm. After considering the evidence, including expert testimony submitted by plaintiff, the
trial court denied defendant’s motion for summary disposition, finding that there was a genuine
issue of material fact regarding causation. We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff was driving his vehicle at Henry Ford Hospital to pick up his wife when he hit a
gate, ran over signs, and collided with a concrete barrier in the hospital’s parking lot. A computed
tomography (CT) scan of his brain revealed a large temporal intracranial hemorrhage, which
required decompression surgery. During surgery, doctors observed a large hematoma in plaintiff’s
brain and a partially thrombosed aneurysm; however, no blood flowed to the dome of the
1 The original lawsuit and appeal in this case were filed before Gibson, Sr.’s death. For the sake
of consistency, we will use the term “plaintiff” to refer to Gibson Sr. or his estate.

-- 1 of 4 --

-2-
aneurysm. In addition to surgery, plaintiff required an extensive hospital stay and accumulated
significant medical bills.
Plaintiff sought coverage from his no-fault insurer, defendant, and eventually sued
defendant for breach of contract and for violating statutory duties by failing to pay no-fault benefits
under the no-fault act, MCL 500.3101 et seq. Defendant moved for summary disposition under
MCR 2.116(C)(10), arguing that plaintiff was not entitled to no-fault benefits because his injuries
resulted from a ruptured aneurysm, not from the operation of a motor vehicle. Defendant in its
motion relied on the security officer’s incident report and plaintiff’s hospital records, which
included a diagnosis of a “nontraumatic intracranial hemorrhage.” Defendant denied plaintiff’s
claim because an expert neurosurgeon opined that the ruptured aneurysm was not traumatically
induced or accident related; this evidence was not, however, submitted as an exhibit to the motion.
Defendant argued that plaintiff was “unable to point to any medical expert who will opine the
injuries were causally related to the accident.”
In response to defendant’s motion, plaintiff submitted expert testimony from a doctor who
“looked at the car picture” of the accident and reviewed plaintiff’s medical records, which included
reports of “airbag deployment,” “head trauma against unknown object,” and extrication. The
doctor rejected the possibility that the aneurysm found during the surgery caused the hematoma or
collision because the aneurysm did not appear on the computed tomography angiography (CTA)
scan of plaintiff’s brain and there was no blood flow through the dome of the aneurysm. Further,
the doctor opined that plaintiff suffered head trauma during the accident and that “the
overwhelming weight of the evidence support[ed] the fact that this was a traumatic hematoma.”
The doctor also stated that visible head trauma is not always present when a patient suffers from a
hematoma like plaintiff’s. Defendant argued in reply that the doctor’s opinion was “little more
than a guess” because he did not observe the collision and medical records indicated that plaintiff
had no apparent signs of trauma. Defendant also claimed that plaintiff’s expert relied on incorrect
information because the doctor testified that there was airbag deployment when photographs of
the vehicle showed no evidence of airbag deployment.
The trial court examined the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, held that the
doctor’s testimony established a genuine issue of material fact regarding causation, and denied
defendant’s motion for summary disposition. The trial court reasoned that the level of contact
with the cement wall, what the contact caused, and the ultimate outcome were issues of fact for
the jury. Defendant then appealed by leave granted.2
II. ANALYSIS
On appeal, defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying its motion for summary
disposition. We review de novo the trial court’s decision on defendant’s motion for summary
disposition. El-Khalil v Oakwood Healthcare, Inc, 504 Mich 152, 159; 934 NW2d 665 (2019).
Defendant’s motion for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10) should have been granted
2 RG v Trumbull Ins Co, unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered December 17, 2024
(Docket No. 371675).

-- 2 of 4 --

-3-
if, when considering the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, there was no genuine
issue of material fact. Id. at 160. “A genuine issue of material fact exists when the record leaves
open an issue upon which reasonable minds might differ.” Id. Once defendant establishes factual
support for its motion, the burden shifts to plaintiff to present documentary evidence establishing
the existence of a material factual dispute. Quinto v Cross & Peters Co, 451 Mich 358, 362; 547
NW2d 314 (1996).
Under MCL 500.3105(1) of the no-fault act, an insurer is liable “to pay benefits for
accidental bodily injury arising out of the ownership, operation, maintenance or use of a motor
vehicle as a motor vehicle.” “An injury arises out of the use of a motor vehicle as a motor vehicle
when the causal connection between the injury and the use of a motor vehicle as a motor vehicle
is more than incidental, fortuitous, or but for.” McPherson v McPherson, 493 Mich 294, 297; 831
NW2d 219 (2013) (cleaned up). An insurer is not liable for no-fault benefits when the motor
vehicle is “merely the situs of injury.” Kemp v Farm Bureau Gen Ins Co of Mich, 500 Mich 245,
262; 901 NW2d 534 (2017).
The trial court properly denied defendant’s motion for summary disposition because
plaintiff presented evidence establishing the existence of a material factual dispute through its
expert testimony. Defendant may have initially presented enough factual support for its motion
by referencing medical records and arguing that there were no other signs of trauma. But when
the burden then shifted to plaintiff, plaintiff established a genuine issue of material fact that
plaintiff’s injuries resulted from the collision rather than a medical emergency.
The doctor’s testimony established a reasonable inference that the hematoma surrounding
plaintiff’s brain was caused by head trauma sustained during the automobile collision with the
concrete barrier, rather than by the aneurysm in his brain rupturing prior to the accident and causing
the collision. Plaintiff’s expert rejected the possibility that the aneurysm discovered during surgery
caused the collision because the aneurysm did not appear on the CTA scan, referencing the surgical
notes. He explained that a CTA scan displays blood flow within the brain; therefore, if the
aneurysm did not appear on the CTA scan, it meant no blood was flowing through it, and without
blood flow, it could not have bled and caused the hematoma, which in turn would not have caused
the collision. Thus, viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the doctor’s
testimony undermines defendant’s theory that plaintiff’s aneurysm bled prior to the accident and
caused the collision. In turn, this evidence helps create a genuine issue of material fact as to
whether plaintiff’s hematoma resulted from head trauma when his vehicle collided with the
concrete wall, rather than the collision resulting from a medical emergency.
On appeal, defendant argues that the doctor’s expert opinion is speculative and factually
unsupported. The doctor’s opinion that plaintiff likely struck his head on some part of his vehicle
during the collision was based on plaintiff’s medical records, which included an indication that the
airbags deployed and plaintiff suffered head trauma, and a picture of the car, which presumedly
showed the outer damage of the vehicle. Even if the airbags did not deploy, the expert and a jury
could reasonably infer from the evidence, including the pictures of the vehicle and concrete barrier,
that plaintiff suffered some form of head trauma during the collision; a jury is “expected to apply
their common experience in assessing facts.” Genna v Jackson, 286 Mich App 413, 424; 781
NW2d 124 (2009) (cleaned up). And although the evidence that defendant produced indicated
that plaintiff exhibited no external signs of trauma, the doctor opined that plaintiff could have

-- 3 of 4 --

-4-
suffered from a hematoma without external indication. The doctor’s testimony provided a
reasonable inference that plaintiff’s hematoma resulted from trauma sustained during the collision
and created a material factual dispute.
Lastly, defendant essentially argues that the doctor’s testimony is less credible because the
doctor stated that plaintiff was noted to have a bruise when the medical records did not include
such observation. Experts are allowed to use their professional experience in determining what
evidence to review in forming their opinion. See MRE 703 (stating that “[a]n expert may base an
opinion on facts or data in the case that the expert has been made aware of or personally
observed”); Green v Jerome-Duncan Ford, Inc, 195 Mich App 493, 498-499; 491 NW2d 243
(1992) (holding that an expert witness “must have an evidentiary basis for his own conclusions,”
but not that an expert witness must review every piece of evidence in a given case). Although an
expert’s opinion cannot be “based on assumptions that are contrary to the facts in evidence,” the
inaccurate or contrary evidence must contribute to the basis of the opinion. See People v Unger,
278 Mich App 210, 248; 749 NW2d 272 (2008).
Here, the expert’s ultimate opinion did not rely on plaintiff having a bruise but that plaintiff
“suffered a motor vehicle accident” which required plaintiff to be extricated from the car. The
expert’s opinion did not conflict with “facts in evidence” but rather conflicted with the hospital’s
conclusion that plaintiff’s injury was nontraumatic, which is a question of causation. There was
enough evidence, including the medical records and pictures of the accident, for plaintiff’s expert
to form a basis and opine that plaintiff’s accident caused the head trauma, thereby creating a
genuine issue of factual causation. See Skinner v Square D Co, 445 Mich 153, 164-165; 516
NW2d 475 (1994). Additionally, an expert’s credibility is a consideration for the jury, not a
dispositive issue in considering a motion for summary disposition. Wilson v Stilwill, 411 Mich
587, 599; 309 NW2d 898 (1981); see also Burkhardt v Bailey, 260 Mich App 636, 647; 680 NW2d
453 (2004) (holding that the trial court “may not resolve factual disputes or determine credibility
in ruling on a summary disposition motion”).
III. CONCLUSION
Ultimately, the trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion for summary
disposition because plaintiff established a question of fact regarding causation through the
evidence he presented.
Affirmed.
/s/ Thomas C. Cameron
/s/ Stephen L. Borrello
/s/ Brock A. Swartzle

-- 4 of 4 --