Case Title: Tucker v. Government Employees Insurance Co.

Citation: 288 So. 2d 238

Docket Number: 

State: florida

Court: Florida Supreme Court

Date: 1973-12-13T00:00:00Z

Document:
288 So. 2d 238 (1973)
Daniel A.B. TUCKER, As Father and Next Friend of Kim Marie Tucker, a Minor, Deceased, and Daniel A.B. Tucker, Individually, Petitioner,
v.
GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES INSURANCE COMPANY, a Foreign Corporation, Respondent.
No. 43711.

Supreme Court of Florida.
December 13, 1973.
Rehearing Denied February 6, 1974.
*239 Edward A. Perse, Horton & Perse, and Ronald W. Jabara, Miami, for petitioner.
Paul A. Carlson, Bradford, Williams, McKay, Kimbrell, Hamann & Jennings, Miami, for respondent.
ERVIN, Justice.
This is a conflict certiorari review of the decision of the District Court of Appeal, Third District, in the case of Tucker et al. v. Government Employees Insurance Company, 274 So. 2d 549.
The District Court of Appeal in its decision answered this question in the negative:
The parties in this litigation stipulated in the trial court to the following facts:
The subject policy of insurance contains the following pertinent provisions:
On the basis of those stipulations and the provisions of the insurance policy, the trial court entered summary judgment in favor of the respondent insurance company. The District Court affirmed "upon authority of the rule stated in Morrison Assurance Company, Inc. v. Polak, Fla. 1969, 230 So. 2d 6."
We disagree with the holding of the District Court. Upon more mature reflection of the true purpose and intent of the uninsured motorist statute, Section 627.0851, F.S., after our decision in Morrison Assurance Company, Inc. v. Polak, supra, we rendered the decision in Mullis v. State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Co., Fla. 1971, 252 So. 2d 229. The holding in Mullis reverted to the better reasoning of the *241 First District Court of Appeal in Sellers v. Government Employees Insurance Co., 1968, 214 So. 2d 879, cert. dis., Fla. 1969, 229 So. 2d 873, that insurance policies covering two or more automobiles owned by the insured with uninsured motorist coverage included and containing a limitation of liability similar to the one here involved, provided coverage to the extent of the bodily injury inflicted upon an insured in the total amount of the per person coverage for each vehicle. In support of its conclusion the District Court said:
Morrison Assurance Company, Inc. v. Polak, supra, relies heavily upon United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Webb (Fla.App. 1966), 191 So. 2d 869, which holding we declined to follow in Mullis. The First District Court, as we have noted above, also refused in 1968 to follow its holding in Webb in Sellers v. Government Employees Insurance Company, supra.
In Mullis, after careful research we announced the general principle (which produces conflict to the "stacking" exclusionary provision below upheld) that:
A reading of Section 627.0851, F.S. as it appears in Florida Statutes 1969 and F.S. Section 627.727, F.S.A., as the latter appears in Florida Statutes 1971, the uninsured motorist statute, does not disclose any statutory basis for a "stacking" exclusion in a policy combining auto liability coverage for two or more automobiles of the named insured with uninsured motorist coverage included.
The statute requires that each such policy cover any bodily injury loss of the insured or insureds caused by the negligence of any uninsured motorist. The statute provides that such coverage shall be included in any automobile liability policy covering "any motor vehicle" in not less than the limits described in Section 324.021(7) "for the protection of persons insured thereunder who are legally entitled to recover damages from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles because of bodily injury ... resulting therefrom." However, this coverage is obviously not restricted to the limits of F.S. Section 324.021(7), F.S.A., for one vehicle when more than one automobile is covered. The quotation from Mullis herein reflects the applicable law where only one automobile is covered. Other cases, e.g., Sellers v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. (Fla.), 185 So. 2d 689, text 692, hold that an insured is entitled to multiple uninsured *242 motorist protection where he is the beneficiary under additional coverage. The total uninsured motorist coverage which the insured has purchased for himself and his family regardless of the number of vehicles covered by his auto liability policy inures to him or any member of his family when injured by an uninsured motorist. Moreover, according to Sellers v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., supra, such total coverage is applicable to any uninsured motorist negligently injuring the insured or any member of his family covered thereby. The statute admits of no authority in the insurer by a provision in the policy to limit coverage on the presumed basis that the uninsured motorist would only have covered himself with the minimum auto liability coverage required under F.S. Section 324.021(7), F.S.A. The determinant of the amount of coverage is the total which the insured purchases pursuant to the authority of the statute and not that which the insurer otherwise attempts to limit by a provision in the policy.
An insured under uninsured motorist coverage is entitled by the statute to the full bodily injury protection that he purchases and for which he pays premiums. It is useless and meaningless and uneconomic to pay for additional bodily injury insurance and simultaneously have this coverage cancelled by an insurer's exclusion. The premium rates are standard and uniform on a per car basis. The insured's full protection cannot be whittled away by exclusions or limitations which presuppose he only intended to cover himself on the presumed basis of single car auto liability coverage had the uninsured motorist purchased the same. Compare Dyer v. Nationwide Mutual Fire Ins. Co. (Fla. 1973), 276 So. 2d 6, and particularly see Employers Liability Assurance Corp., Ltd. v. Jackson (1973), 289 Ala. 673, 270 So. 2d 806.
We must not confuse uninsured motorist protection as inuring to a particular motor vehicle as in the case of automobile liability insurance. It is bodily injury insurance which protects against such injury inflicted by the negligence of any uninsured motorist.
It is an anomaly to contend that if two automobiles are combined in the coverage of one auto liability insurance policy with uninsured motorist protection added that an exclusion of the kind here involved may be validly inserted, but that if a separate policy covered each automobile such exclusion is invalid. The mere form of a policy  a combination coverage  should not be the predicate for an exclusion of additional coverage.
It was held in Sellers v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., supra, that an insured protected by more than one policy of uninsured motorist insurance was entitled to recover under all such policies to the extent of his bodily injury by an uninsured motorist. The rationale of Sellers was that any contrary exclusionary clause to such recovery was invalid under the statute. The Mullis case, as well as Salas v. Liberty Mutual Fire Ins. Co., Fla. 1972, 272 So. 2d 1, follows the Sellers rationale. The weight of authority over the nation follows this rationale.
We note nothing in Section 627.0851 or its successor, Section 627.727, which authorizes an insurer providing uninsured motorist coverage to limit coverage as here attempted. The statute covers the entire subject and sets forth what may be excluded. For example, Section 627.727, F.S. 1971, F.S.A., does not allow an insured's collateral sources as follows:
*243 to be duplicated by uninsured motorist coverage; the latter is excess over.
It is quite obvious from the quoted language just above that although the Legislature has gone a long way in whittling away for insurers the uninsured motorist coverage as was prescribed for the public in the original uninsured motorist statute, the Legislature has not as yet gotten around to limiting such coverage as the insurer here has attempted.
The decision of the District Court is quashed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent herewith.
It is so ordered.
ADKINS, BOYD and McCAIN, JJ., concur.
DEKLE, J., dissents with opinion.
CARLTON, C.J., and ROBERTS, J., dissent and concur with DEKLE, J.
DEKLE, Justice (dissenting):
No conflict appears; ergo, no jurisdiction. I would discharge the writ of certiorari.
The district court has done no more than to follow our own Polak in which this Court reviewed the matter of "stacking" of uninsured motorist coverage in a combination multi-vehicle policy, as here. Obviously then, Polak and the present case reaching the same result, are not in conflict.
Mullis and Salas turn on points not in conflict with Polak and Tucker, sub judice. Mullis and Salas similarly held exclusionary clauses invalid which attempted to deny coverage to a resident household member injured in a family-owned but non-covered vehicle.
Tucker, here, involves no denial of coverage; indeed, the full $10,000 minimum liability was paid. The district court's opinion under review quotes from our previous decisions in stating that the uninsured motorist statute was to provide coverage:
Thus the holding is completely consistent with our uninsured motorist statute and holdings thereunder and precisely meets its objective to provide the minimum limits that an uninsured motorist should have been carrying, namely, the $10,000 which was paid.
There being no conflict as a basis for our jurisdiction, I would discharge the writ of certiorari as improvidently issued.
CARLTON, C.J., and ROBERTS, J., concur.