TAMARA FILAS V. MEEMIC INSURANCE COMPANY
A first-party auto case (claim for PIP benefits from my own insurance company)
Michigan Court of Appeals Case No. 316822
Michigan Supreme Court Case No. 150510

If you are seeking the truth about the case, Tamara Filas v. MEEMIC Insurance Company, you've reached the right place. If you landed on this page from a web search, please visit the home page first to understand the nature of this website.

It is my sincere hope that my development of this web page will put an end to the harm caused to me by the Michigan Court of Appeals’ 10-14-14 Opinion for my case against MEEMIC Insurance Company, as well as other law firms’ blog posts commentating on the case; all of which appear at the top of search results after conducting searches of my name. The 10-14-14 Opinion and blog posts contain a multitude of untruths and substantially misrepresent my actions and the nature of this case. They contain defamatory statements giving the appearance that I am incompetent, not of sound mind, suffering from impaired judgment, or all three.

The truth is that I competently attempted to fight for my right to medical privacy as a pro per litigant, which turned out to be a right the Michigan courts were not willing to uphold. MEEMIC’s defense attorney and the courts went to extreme lengths to violate my right to provide my medical records to MEEMIC using a particular court form (MC 315) created and mandated by the Supreme Court Administrative Office ("SCAO"). SCAO-mandated Form MC 315 did not allow for my records to be digitized, stored in a third-party database, and sold for profit; but I was denied my right to use Form MC 315, and was forced to choose between using a record copying service’s forms or having my case dismissed. I chose to have my case dismissed, rather than be bullied into signing forms that I wasn’t legally obligated to sign.

I hope you will take the time to read what really happened in my case against MEEMIC Insurance Company. My commentary below contains links to some of the key exhibits filed into the case in order to facilitate the reader’s comprehension of this case. The complete Court of Appeals and Supreme Court pleadings filed by me and the Defendant, MEEMIC Insurance Company, are linked and available to read at the bottom of this web page.

BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF THE CASE

My case against MEEMIC Insurance Company represents a complete and total failure of our justice system. I lost my right to my PIP benefits (excess medical bills totaling over $20,000, work loss compensation over $123,000, and replacement services) all because I chose to fight for my right to medical privacy, a right that was guaranteed by the Michigan Court Rules and a particular form (MC 315) mandated by the Supreme Court Administrative Office (”SCAO”). However, the applicable court rule was not followed or upheld by the Courts and I was denied my right to use Form MC 315.

First and foremost, let it be clear that I never refused to sign medical authorizations for MEEMIC. I simply requested to use Form MC 315 instead of the Records Deposition Service (“RDS”) forms provided to me by MEEMIC, to complete my obligation under Michigan Court Rule (“MCR”) 2.314(c)(1) to provide my medical records to MEEMIC. The Wayne County Circuit Court denied me my right to use Form MC 315, and egregiously dismissed my case when I refused to be bullied into signing the RDS forms.

SCAO-mandated Form MC 315 did not require the use of a record copying service which would have digitized and stored my medical records in a proprietary database, available for future disclosure to whoever was willing to pay for their release. Form MC 315 protected many other rights as well, and the language on the form contained significant differences when compared with the RDS forms. The RDS forms even contained violations of a HIPAA regulation. In addition to the potential harm from allowing third parties to copy and sell one’s medical information, the records in a copy service’s database are not even accessible to or viewable by the injured person to verify the accuracy of the records that were collected and placed into the database.

I appealed the circuit court’s dismissal of my case to the Michigan Court of Appeals (“COA”). To avoid ruling on issue of my right to use SCAO-mandated Form MC 315, the Court of Appeals (“COA”) invented a novel reason for the dismissal of my case---that a 2-20-13 Protective Order entered in the case required that I sign the RDS forms. The COA’s argument involving the protective order was never presented by MEEMIC in any circuit court filings, and therefore was not a preserved argument that the COA could legally use as justification. Not only was the argument completely fabricated by the COA, it didn’t have any merit since the protective order didn’t even contain any language dictating which forms I had to use to provide my medical records to MEEMIC.

Despite the fact that I had been subjected to fraudulent and/or deceptive behavior on the part of the attorneys and courts I has dealt with thus far, especially in my efforts to keep my protected medical information out of third party databases, and in my efforts to uphold my right to be able to use MC 315 to release my medical records to MEEMIC; I sincerely had faith that the Supreme Court would finally put an end to this process of attrition inflicted upon me, and uphold the use of their very own Supreme Court Administrative Office’s mandated Form MC 315. However, I was wrong. The MSC denied my 11-25-14 MSC Application, simply stating, “we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.”

I wasn’t provided with an opportunity to accept being bullied into signing the RDS forms so that I could proceed with my case, having it heard on the merits of my injuries sustained in the auto accident. Because I was appealing a dismissal, and lost my appeal, my case was simply gone forever. Even more detrimental to me than the monetary loss of my PIP benefits, was the defamatory 10-14-14 Court of Appeals Opinion, published to the internet on multiple websites. Worse still was the subsequent appearance of several law firms’ blog posts (written by law firms that did not even play a direct role in the litigation, at least that I am aware of) that created their own summaries of my case. These blog posts actually contained even more misstatements of fact, and portrayed me in an even more negative light than the COA Opinion itself. For over a decade, these internet publications have caused immeasurable harm to my personal and professional relationships, which is why I finally decided to set the record straight by the creation of this website.

MEEMIC’s COA pleadings contained repetitive, erroneous and distorted presentations of the case history, many of which were incorporated into the COA’s 10-14-14 Opinion, even though I provided clear, hard evidence that MEEMIC’s allegations and statements of fact were untrue. It appeared as if the COA did not even read the rebuttals contained in my pleadings or examine any of my exhibits. In fact, there were so many erroneous statements in the 10-14-14 COA Opinion, I was barely able to adequately address them in the 33 numbered items presented in my 51-page 11-25-14 Appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court, which included 103 pages of supporting evidence. The 10-14-14 COA Opinion also omitted important, relative information to create a severely tainted representation of me and my actions in this case.

One of the biggest hurdles was that in writing my COA pleadings, I had to spend an inordinate amount of time rebutting MEEMIC’s false narratives regarding events that took place in the lower court. Since these untruths then became incorporated into the COA’s 10-14-14 Opinion, they had to be rebutted a second time in my MSC pleadings. To fail to address them would have indicated my agreement with the false statements.

All of my corrections to misstatements of fact tended to bog down my pleadings, obscuring the true nature of the case, and making for some tedious and difficult reading, which was most likely MEEMIC’s intent and tactical strategy by its inclusion of so many misstatements of fact. Therefore, rather than direct the reader to my pleadings, I decided to provide on this web page a discussion of the most pertinent issues, with separate links to supporting exhibits, so that the reader can clearly understand the true nature of my case and the very important rights I was litigating, without having to read through all the corrections to the facts. To read my rebuttals to the misstatements of fact appearing in the COA’s 10-14-14 Opinion, which are not all addressed in the following discussion, please read my 11-25-14 MSC Application.

DISCUSSION OF THE CASE WITH LINKS TO SUPPORTING EXHIBITS FILED WITH MY PLEADINGS

The numbered discussions below include links to supporting evidence that was filed with my pleadings, and should be sufficient to convince anyone that I most definitely should not have been denied the right to use SCAO-mandated Form MC 315 to provide my medical records to MEEMIC Insurance Company. It should be clear that my case should not have been dismissed for my refusal to sign the RDS forms and my request to sign copies of Form MC 315 instead.

1. In the situation of an injured party being required to provide their medical records to a defendant, MCR 2.14(C)(1)(d) is the governing Michigan Court Rule, as verified by MEEMIC’s 2-20-13 Motion to Compel (pgs. 1-2 provided, with pertinent clause highlighted). MEEMIC’s 2-20-13 Motion specifically lists MCR 2.14(C)(1)(d) as the reason MEEMIC was compelling me to sign the RDS forms.
   
   The circuit court’s decision to dismiss my case due to its refusal to allow me to use MC 315 to release copies of my medical records to MEEMIC was an abuse of discretion, and was outside the range of reasonable and principled outcomes, a-d, when a party is served with a request for production of documents, as provided under MCR 2.314(C)(1):

        MCR 2.314(C)(1), Response by Party to Request for Medical Information, states:

            (1) A party who is served with a request for production of medical information under MCR 2.310 must either:

(a) make the information available for inspection and copying as requested;
(b) assert that the information is privileged;
(c) object to the request as permitted by MCR 2.310(C)(2); or
(d) furnish the requesting party with signed authorizations in the form approved by the state court administrator sufficient in number to enable the requesting party to obtain the information requested from persons, institutions, hospitals, and other custodians in actual possession of the information requested.

2. The State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) is the Administrative Office of the Michigan Supreme Court. A 6-17-15 printout from the SCAO website was filed as evidence, which explains the function of the SCAO.
   
   Under MCR 2.314(C)(1)(d), the governing court rule regarding the production of my medical information to MEEMIC via signed authorizations, the only authorization form approved by the State Court Administrative Office (“SCAO”) is Form MC 315.
   
   The document published on the SCAO website titled “Mandatory Creation of Or Use of SCAO-Approved Forms” clearly indicates the mandatory use of Form MC 315. Next to the form name is the corresponding court rule, MCR 2.14(C)(1)(d), the rule specifically stated in MEEMIC’s 2-20-13 Motion to Compel me to sign RDS authorizations.
    

3. Here is a copy of SCAO-mandated Form MC 315. In the upper left-hand corner, the form states, “Approved, SCAO”.
    

4. Mr. Chad C. Schmucker was the State Court Administrator at the time of my litigation (he retired in 2016). The Michigan Supreme Court’s position in regard to the use of Form MC 315 was re-confirmed in a 6-23-11 Memorandum from Chad C. Schmucker, in which he states, “We have received some reports of courts refusing to accept SCAO-approved court forms. It has been difficult to determine specifically where this is occurring and whether it is a court policy, a practice of an individual judge, or simple misunderstanding by a court clerk. This memo is intended to clarify what is already the practice of almost all of the courts across the state.” Mr. Schmucker quotes the procedural rules regarding forms contained in MCR 1.109, stating, “Unless specifically required by statute or court rule, the court may not mandate the use of a specific form, whether SCAO-approved or locally developed.” In the aforementioned quotation, Mr. Schmucker is referring to the lower courts, not the MSC. Mr. Schmucker also clarifies that, “Courts cannot impose additional procedures beyond those contained in the court rules. Therefore, all courts must accept court forms approved by the Supreme Court or the state court administrator.”
    

5. In addition to the inclusion of Mr. Schmucker’s 6-23-11 Memorandum in my filed evidence, I also included a web page from the State Court Administrative Office which stated, “USE OF SCAO-APPROVED COURT FORMS – All courts must accept court forms approved by the Supreme Court or the state court administrator.”
   
   It couldn’t be any clearer that the Wayne County Circuit Court did not have the legal right to deny my request to use SCAO-approved Form MC 315 to provide my medical records to MEEMIC.
   
   Dismissal of my case was not a “reasonable and principled outcome” when I was clearly permitted under MCR 2.314(C)(1)(d) to “furnish the requesting party [MEEMIC] with signed authorizations in the form approved by the state court administrator,” which was Form MC 315.
    

6. In order to maintain the status quo and allow insurance companies to continue violating MCR 2.314(C)(1)(d) to unlawfully collect, store, and sell injured parties’ medical records in perpetuity, rather than rule on the real issue of my right to use Form MC 315, the Court of Appeals’ 10-14-14 Opinion upheld the trial court’s dismissal based on a novel argument that the 2-20-13 Protective Order (“PO”) entered in my case gave the trial court the authority to require me to sign RDS forms, and to deny my right to use Form MC 315.
   
   The COA’s 10-14-14 Opinion also contained the novel (and false) claim that the 2-20-13 PO protected me against re-disclosure of the records provided, which was one of my major concerns, since the RDS forms allowed for perpetual re-disclosure of my records to whomever paid for their release.
   
   The COA’s novel arguments related to the PO were never presented by MEEMIC, and therefore were not preserved arguments. For the COA to legally be able to use a specific argument to justify its Opinion, the argument must have already been presented by one of the parties in the lower court case proceedings. It was not legal for the COA to fabricate its own arguments to assist MEEMIC in prevailing. Even if the COA judges can postulate a good argument to help a particular party win the case, if the argument was never presented by one of the litigating parties in the lower court, it cannot legally be used by the COA in its Opinion.
   
   Not only was it unlawful for the COA to fabricate a novel argument related to the PO to allow MEEMIC to prevail, the COA’s argument was completely without merit since the 2-20-13 PO doesn’t even contain any language dictating the authorization forms I had to sign.
   
   It is important to understand that the issue of my right to use Form MC 315 was never even litigated in the MEEMIC case because of the COA’s reliance on its novel argument regarding the 7-20-13 Protective Order.
   
   Click here to examine the 2-20-13 Protective Order to verify it does not dictate the medical authorization forms I must sign, and does not contain any protection against the re-disclosure of my records (which would have required a separate binding agreement signed by Records Deposition Service, which did not exist).
   
   Please refer to my MSC filing, 7-9-15 Reply to MEEMIC’s 6-29-15 Answer to my 6-18-15 Motion for Reconsideration, for further details related to the issue of the COA’s novel argument regarding the PO, and the reasons behind the entry of the 2-20-13 PO (which had nothing to do with the signing of medical authorizations).
    

7. The 10-14-14 COA Opinion also neglected to rule upon or even mention my other arguments against signing the RDS authorization forms that were included in Question #5 presented to the Court of Appeals to answer in my 10-10-13 COA Brief on Appeal. I presented valid objections to specific language contained within the RDS forms. The RDS forms:
   
   A) would have allowed my information to be re-disclosed and sold indefinitely (item A of Question #5, pg. 16 of 10-10-13 Brief on Appeal);
   
   B) exempted RDS from damages for unauthorized disclosures and allowed for photocopies to be valid as the original (item B of Question #5, pg. 16 of 10-10-13 Brief on Appeal);
   
   C) failed to list MEEMIC or MEEMIC’s attorney’s name on the RDS form as the entity to which disclosure would be made (item C of Question #5, pg. 19 of 10-10-13 Brief on Appeal);
   
   D) included my Social Security number (item D of Question #5, pg. 20 of 10-10-13 Brief on Appeal);
   
   E) lacked a Subpoena or Letter Request, which is specifically stated on the RDS form is to be attached when one receives the form to sign (Item E of Question #5 on pg. 20 of 10-10-13 Brief on Appeal).

   Items A-E above regarding the language on RDS the forms were valid arguments and valid concerns because this language went above and beyond what one must agree to on SCAO-mandated form MC 315. My arguments regarding the non-conforming language should have been considered by the Court of Appeals.

   In addition, the COA’s 10-14-14 Opinion argued that the insertion of the words “until the close of this case” was an acceptable expiration date expansion beyond the 60-day expiration period specified in Form MC 315. The Opinion failed to mention a very important point—the RDS form contained no reference to the case name or number, rendering the words “until the close of this case” absolutely meaningless to the person receiving the form.

   Here are copies of the RDS forms provided to me by MEEMIC, indicating far different requirements than Form MC 315. It is noteworthy that RDS claimed on its website to be the “preferred vendor for nearly every insurance company in the United States,” leaving no doubt this company is clearly in the business of selling medical records.  Three pages from the RDS website were included within my evidence (see paragraph 1 on pg. 2).  RDS continues to stand by this claim on its current website.
    

8. Although the reason I appealed the MEEMIC case to the Court of Appeals (“COA”) was due to the circuit court’s non-acceptance of SCAO-mandated Form MC 315, the reason I filed an Application with the Michigan Supreme Court (“MSC”) was different. MEEMIC’s MSC filings continually misconstrue the reason for my MSC Application as being primarily about my right to use Form MC 315, similarly to my arguments presented in my COA Appeal, but this is inaccurate: My 11-25-14 MSC Application was filed to dispute the fact that the Court of Appeals presented a novel reason to uphold the circuit court’s dismissal of my case which was not an argument preserved by MEEMIC----that the 2-20-13 Protective Order (“PO”) entered in the case was the sole reason I had to sign RDS forms and why I was not permitted to use SCAO-mandated Form MC 315 to provide my medical records to MEEMIC.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Part of the reason the use of record copying services is so rampant in Michigan’s court system appears to be because some, if not all, of the record copying services doing business in Michigan are actually owned and operated by attorneys. Given that attorneys are also monetarily involved in the practice of collecting and selling medical records (quite possibly receiving kickbacks from records they provide to the database from their clients), it is no wonder the routine practice of personal injury attorneys is to require their clients to sign these types of forms despite MCR 2.314(C)(1)(d) mandating the use of SCAO-approved form MC 315.

My first attorney in the MEEMIC case had me sign a different record-copying service’s forms and asked me not to date the forms. Because the forms allowed for photocopies to be as valid as the original (like RDS’s forms), these forms could be used to collect my records in perpetuity simply by the addition of a new date and the attachment of different subpoenas or letter requests to the form. I was later enlightened by one of my healthcare providers that it was illegal for my attorney to have asked me to sign these undated forms. While searching for a different attorney to re-file my case in a timely manner, 20+ auto lawyers I consulted all routinely used record copying services’ forms that compromised their clients’ medical privacy. One attorney even sent me home with a copy services’ medical authorization forms to sign with a post-it note on them stating, “Sign, don’t date,” just like my first attorney had requested of me.

I only located one attorney who promised he would be willing to uphold my right to provide my medical records to MEEMIC without the use of a records copying service. I hired him, and he ultimately ended up breaching his agreement with me and conspiring with MEEMIC to force me to use Records Deposition Service’s forms.

Since it seemed to be impossible to find a personal injury attorney who wasn’t requiring their clients to sign record copying service forms to provide their medical records to the Defendant, my only option was to represent myself and become a pro per litigant. I realized I was likely the only person in Michigan with the knowledge, ability, and inclination to take on this issue of an injured party’s right to use Form MC 315.

The situation of my inability to find a lawyer to represent my interest in litigating the right to use Form MC 315 was erroneously interpreted by me and my mom (who financed this case, assisted me in performing research, helped to write and edit the pleadings, and provided moral support). She and I simply thought that an attorney working within the system couldn’t take on the case and continue to have success in their employment because they would be fighting something that wasn’t politically correct---the attorney would be represented as a whistleblower among their peers and would become ostracized. We truly believed that I had the power to win this case because we believed the court would do what was right if presented with the correct laws, rules and arguments.

Armed with such solid evidence, combined with detailed explanations of its significance in my pleadings, and of course, our underlying faith in the justice system; my mom and I truly believed there was no way I could possibly lose this case, which is why I refused to be bullied into signing the RDS forms and allowed my case to be dismissed over this important issue. However, we highly underestimated the system’s determination to do whatever was necessary to protect the status quo (using databases to perpetually collect, store and sell injured parties’ medical records for use by insurance companies and other interested parties); including fabrication of novel arguments, misrepresenting the nature of my case, and allowing proven untruths to be published to the internet.

Had we understood then that courts do not operate on the premise of what is legal and just, and instead are heavily influenced by politics and corporate interests, we never would have taken on such an endeavor to protect my right to use Form MC 315, but we were both naïve. My mom and I truly thought we were doing something worthwhile that would help others in the same predicament, and that would resolve the issue of the circuit court’s refusal to accept Form MC 315 indefinitely. We believed this important issue would be resolved in courts across the state and no one else would have to fight for this right, or be threatened with or suffer case dismissal, as I did, for requesting to use MC 315 instead of having to provide one’s records to a third-party records copying service to be maintained in an electronic database, available for purchase in perpetuity.

My mom and I were subjected to a rude awakening and a very different reality than we ever expected or imagined when we decided to take on this case. The Supreme Court was unwilling to oversee that the circuit court and COA were accepting its own Administrative Office’s mandated form, and was unwilling to address and to use my case as an opportunity to uphold MCR 2.314(C)(1)(d), to set a precedent or clarify the law. The MSC’s refusal to entertain the legitimacy of the use of the SCAO-mandated Form MC 315 in accordance with MCR 2.314(C)(1)(d) gave the message that either the judicial system is broken or politically biased in favor of insurance schemes that benefit the State, the insurance companies and other corporate interests; that the MSC did not respect or follow the mandates created by its own administrative agency; that the judicial system was biased against pro per litigants or others (such as litigants represented by an attorney) who wished to exercise their right not to release their medical information to third parties that can then legally re-disclose it; or all of the above.

DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE COURTS

Below is a chronological list of links to documents filed with the Michigan Court of Appeals and Michigan Supreme Court, and Orders issued by these Courts.

For purposes of transparency, both my own (the Plaintiff-Appellant's, "PL-AT's") filings and MEEMIC Insurance Company's (the Defendant-Appellee's, "DF-AE's") filings are included.

For easier reference, linked here are my 10-10-13 Brief on Appeal to the Court of Appeals, my 11-25-14 Application to the Michigan Supreme Court (which contains separate numbered discussions of 33 misstatements of fact appearing in the 10-14-14 COA Opinion), and my 6-18-15 Motion for Reconsideration of the Supreme Court's denial of my Application.

My filings appear in purple font; MEEMIC's filings are in blue, and Court Orders are in green.