Case Title: Weiss v. Farmers Ins. Group

Citation: 302 N.W.2d 353

Docket Number: 

State: minnesota

Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Date: 1981-01-30T00:00:00Z

Document:
302 N.W.2d 353 (1981) Catherine C. WEISS, Appellant, v. FARMERS INSURANCE GROUP, Respondent. No. 50862. Supreme Court of Minnesota. January 30, 1981. Courtney, Gruesen & Petersen and James J. Courtney III, Duluth, for appellant. *354 Rider, Bennett, Egan & Arundel, Richard J. Nygaard, and Lewis A. Remele, Jr., Minneapolis, for respondent. Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc. SCOTT, Justice. This is an appeal from an order of the District Court of St. Louis County in favor of respondent Farmers Insurance Group, the defendant below, on cross-motions for summary judgment. We affirm. The pertinent facts stipulated to the trial court are as follows: *355 At issue is whether the Minnesota No-Fault statute[1] will permit an injured pedestrian to stack the basic economic loss benefits of the insurance policies owned by the driver who struck her. The stacking of benefits was first permitted by this court with regard to uninsured motorist coverage. See In re Pleitgen v. Farmers Insurance Exchange, 296 Minn. 191, 207 N.W.2d 535 (1973); Van Tassel v. Horace Mann Mutual Insurance Co., 296 Minn. 181, 207 N.W.2d 348 (1973). Stacking was authorized to secure for insureds all the benefits they have paid for.[2] The Minnesota no-fault statute was first interpreted with regard to stacking in the consolidated case reported as Wasche v. Milbank Mutual Insurance Co., 268 N.W.2d 913 (Minn. 1978).[3] The injured party in Wasche was an insured under two policies owned by a member of her household. The court allowed her to stack benefits under both policies. The injured party in the case consolidated with Wasche sought to stack the benefits from two policies in which he was the named insured and from a third policy owned by a family member. This court allowed the injured party to stack benefits from the policies in which he was a named insured, but held that he was not an insured under the family member's policy and did not allow him to stack those benefits.[4] In comparing this court's decisions on stacking uninsured motorist benefits and no-fault coverage, the Wasche court stated: Id. at 918-19. The Wasche court found that the Minnesota Legislature did not intend to preclude stacking of no-fault benefits. Instead the court held that "under the present statute *356 the injured person shall be allowed to recover basic economic loss benefits under each no-fault coverage applicable to him as an insured to the extent of actual losses up to the stacked policy limits of all policies applicable on a single priority level." Id. at 919 (emphasis added). Respondent argues that, in the instant case, the applicable statutory priority level precludes stacking. The priority section which the court considered in the Wasche decision was Minn.Stat. § 65B.47, subd. 4(a) (1978), which provides as follows: (Emphasis added.) The appropriate priority section for purposes of this appeal is Minn.Stat. § 65B.47, subd. 4(c) (1978), which provides as follows: (Emphasis added.) This statute, providing for plaintiff's coverage under the no-fault act, is specific and not like the statutory provisions involved in Wasche. The difference between these priority provisions is self-evident. Under subd. 4(a), considered by the Wasche court, stacking is easily implied since an injured person can be an insured under more than one policy. However, subd. 4(c) does not provide the same rationale. Under this section an injured party can only receive benefits from the security covering an involved automobile, not an involved driver. The accident which injured appellant involved one automobile. Under this priority level, her recovery is limited to the security for that automobile.[5] We therefore hold, consistent with Wasche and its progeny, that the appellant cannot obtain benefits from a no-fault policy covering a noninvolved vehicle. Affirmed. [1] See Minnesota No-Fault Automobile Insurance Act, codified as Minn.Stat. §§ 65B.41-.71 (1978). [2] In Van Tassel v. Horace Mann Mutual Ins. Co., 296 Minn. 181, 187, 207 N.W.2d 348, 351 (1973), this court said: It seems to us that, in spite of the attempt by the insurer to limit its liability to one policy or to the amount recoverable under one policy, the fact that the legislature required an uninsured-motorist provision in all policies, added to the fact that a premium has been collected on each of the policies involved, should result in the policyholder's receiving what he paid for in each policy, up to the full amount of his damages. It is true that such holding results in permissible recovery exceeding what he would have received if the uninsured motorist had been insured for the minimum amount required under our Safety Responsibility Act. But if the question must be resolved on the basis of who gets a windfall, it seems more just that the insured who has paid a premium should get all he paid for rather than that the insurer should escape liability for that for which it collected a premium. [3] The Wasche case is noted in Comment, Stacking of Basic Economic Loss Benefits Under the Minnesota No-Fault Automobile Insurance Act, 5 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 421 (1979). [4] Minn.Stat. § 65B.43, subd. 5 (1978), defines an insured as follows: "Insured" means an insured under a plan of reparation security as provided by sections 65B.41 to 65B.71, including the named insured and the following persons not identified by name as an insured while (a) residing in the same household with the named insured and (b) not identified by name in any other contract for a plan of reparation security complying with sections 65B.41 to 65B.71 as an insured: (1) a spouse, (2) other relative of a named insured or (3) a minor in the custody of a named insured or of a relative residing in the same household with a named insured. A person resides in the same household with the named insured if that person usually makes his home in the same family unit, even though he temporarily lives elsewhere. (Emphasis added.) [5] See Koons v. National Family Insurance, 301 N.W.2d 550, Minn. 1981, wherein stacking was not allowed across priority levels.