honour's the issue before you today it is whether when she or satisfies a hit and run requirements of both the statute and stay firm policy for the best of my knowledge this precise issue has not been addressed by any one only quarter review however i believe there are compelling reasons in both the statute and forty years of case law that compels the conclusion that when share does not satisfy the hit and run requirements in involving mr benedetta with his wife occurred back in september of two thousand and nine and they were traveling on a highway i fifty in southern illinois on a motorcycle at about eight thirty at night they e they admit there was no mr bennett or miss there was no physical contact but he said he had to swerve to avoid the truck and in so doing the force of the wind generated by the truck caused him to push even further so the right off the roadway and lose control of he and his wife suffered injuries his wife he did he indicate that he maneuvered his vehicle in some way before he was before he and his vehicle encountered the wind shear semi tractor trailer truck yes i according to his statement which is part of the record his first the base of action when he saw the alleged semi truck crossing  it was or the name of the truck and was never identified as an accurate that's exactly accurate justice and i have been there will tell you in this part of our brief safe i'm never conceded that there was this truck and it never conceded that farm decided in one nine hundred seventy four it is still a good law and it says that the hit and run provision of the uninsured motorist if she is not ambiguous it requires physical contact now there are cases that have been decided since for a guy that have interpreted policy language in other insurance companies policies that make exceptions to the physical contact rule and there's no prohibition in illinois for an counsel for mr ben the dental relies upon i'm so whole and we don't have any i'll dispute with that they in a trance company can do that state farm didn't do it in this case state farm has a hidden one requirements needs for construction it was the exact term that appears in state firms policy say first policy also provides after the requirement that it be a hit and run that there be physical contact with hit by a hurricane or people get hit by tornadoes well that's true but and i'll make the same argument that i made in the trial court which is the purpose of  requirement according to the supreme court is to avoid fraudulent claims and there are situations in their appellate court cases where it is absolutely clear that there was no fraudulent claim but  run that's and that doesn't mean the suggest that this is a perfectly fair will in all cases and it's not meant to be the rule has to be applied broadly in the way that it's presented because it's meant to prevent fraudulent claims there is nothing that state farm can do in this case if this simple testimony of the claimant is that when caused me to lose control of my vehicle there is nothing state from can do in this case to prevent a fraudulent claim so what you're what you're saying is in a case where there is no proof of a hit and no independent proof of the run that the possibility of fraud is greatly increased right there there's no way to dispute that the insurance company is at the mercy in their case of the claimants unless there were independent witnesses if there are independent witnesses that is different but the illinois appellate court and several occasions said even when there's independent witnesses or because of the supreme court rule requiring physical contact to hit and run we still can't extend coverage so if we don't concede true assuming argue when doe that this happened the way he said it's not sufficient to you in full coverage under the statute or the policy language the public policy reason for this provision in the statute and the policy is strong it will not be fostered if the trial court's decision is allowed to stand in this case if lessers any further questions i'll just reserve the rest of my time ok it's true that for a guy in the early seventy's look at a state farm policy and decided whether physical contact in a state farm policy was allowed to stand based on public policy and the provision they were talking about there was a hit and run provision right it was definite run provision and it stated the words physical contact so how do you get around that i do you know first of all you understand we're looking at hall as if we were you know judge rooney in the trial court so we can't give any deference to the ruling that was made a low so how do you get around fraga for a guy however you pronounce it right this is not a public policy argument we look to the supreme court in the eighty's and look at what hartford did and they've basically came up with a test to see first of all we're talking about striking physical contact is no longer in the state farm policy and was not in jon benet at those policies really for a good is an apple compared to an orange but let's look at hartford and what they decided in hartford  they said a continuous and contemporaneously transmitted force is enough to satisfy the physical contact requirements or  there was a deviation from for a go in the mid eighty's and that was based on a first district case of palmer and we're talking about the case where a log not flies off the phantom vehicle and we're talking about a case where one vehicle hard for was a case where one vehicle hits another and caused that vehicle to to hit the injured parties vehicle in hartford but the test was now the stablished as to what constitutes striking both physical contact or hit and run under the statute they took into consideration what actually occurs out there and the fact that there's a gaping hole in coverage to the peril of the policyholder where they do in these situations now i know that state farm relies on canal a second district case but that's once again it was a public policy decision in canal they argued the public policy should be that if we have independent corroborat evidence despite the fact that we agree there is no no physical contact and no continuously contemporaneously transmitted force they didn't argue that canal that's another apple compared to our orange which part of this policy and the judgment of plaintiff here is ambiguous if any strike hit and run the fact that we're spending pages and pages of time defining hidden ron and strike with eighteen plus dictionary definitions of these terms i know but none of them says hip or mess and ron and it seems like what the argument here would be is that u nder the way you read hartford or other cases that if there ought to be we ought to read into the policy that it could be hit or miss and run hidden run or missing or on one of the other and it just seems to me that that proves that it's not ambiguous because you're trying to add something to it to benefit your reading of the case well the way i look at it is if you can go to the dictionary and look it up and it's got one plain and clear meaning we don't have cases arguing the term run nobody's gonna file declaratory judgment over the word run but there is spend forty years of arguing over full days it  what's not satisfied is what constitutes striking and how you define it as a policyholder you walk up how do you define that you go to that if the ordinary plain meaning this if this were not a  causing the motorcycle to move but let's say there was a tornado in this part of the illinois and they were hit by an f two f three whatever and blown off the road the hit and run policy provision of the policy wouldn't apply w correct because it must be a random vehicle right but there would be another way of getting coverage under you know being struck a vehicle while you're in the you know hit by an act of god or storm or something no act and runs well then because the statute requires that the statute doesn't require that x of god be covered by insurance policies that that that in a reading of the you know the statute for uninsured motorist coverage which contain so they don't ok in my opinion yeah there's another gaping hole in policy coverage that's really to be left for other cases pacific cases from other jurisdictions that say that wind she equal to strike or physical i think and if so what are they certainly well you know i must concede that all the cases that we cite from the other jurisdictions that deal with when should have addressed this issue deal with statutes that are different  there's twenty three states that don't have this physical contact requirement is they just think it's unfair to the policyholders here they never had it in there or they found out that hey our policy holders of this state are being left without you know coverage is just not fair so they changed those statutes so in fairness to state farm the cases that we cited were there to show that when share is base a force to be contended with and that has been contended with or addressed by other courts this isn't a phenomenon we're making up when share is a real threat you know as stated earlier causes planes to be knocked out of the air and the wind shear from a truck is well known  across the country and across all manuals on motorcycle riding that it is a force so that you know the case is really this is a case almost of first impression based on this statute across the country neither of us could find a case on point it's just not out there but when sure has been addressed as being a force and they accept that as a force in those in  those cases but they also accept that it's in many of them don't require the physical contact so i'm appreciating that we can't give any deference to the lower court's ruling what was the basis upon which you persuaded the lower court that coverage ought to obtain continuously in contemporaneously transmitted force from offending vehicle and i think the lower court and th  you know i just want to address fraud real quickly because that seems to be what everybody's concerned with but thank goodness to our system were allowed to try cases before trier of fact when competent evidence and advocacy are presented from the well of a courtroom or in this case it would be in a conference room to a trial of fact they determine whether fraud exists because it's a fact question just inherent in the word fraud did it happen or not so to state that you know the fear of fraud what they have a safeguard for that they've got a trier of fact in this case it's three attorneys who or ex judges or a single judge that you may agree upon who are going to decide that fact they're going to look into mr bennett at those eyes and his wife's eyes and they're going to determine are they telling the truth they're going to look at the facts of the case and say wait is this a case where a motorcycle rider is on you know a two lane highway that's divided in his driving down and says you know fifty yards away the truck wind shear caused them to go off the road you know look at that and hit me now right but when you look at a case where you're on a two lane country highway with gravel shoulders and a truck is make going around the bend and a truck crosses over the center line to a motorcycle and the motorcycle is able to avoid that and then is blown off the road by wind sheer they can say you know that's that's plausible that is something i believe because when they told it to me i believed them when they s that's our system of justice you have to put both of you went into the trial court asking for summary judgment on the issue of whether or not the policy applied regardless of how it would be arbitrated or you know litigated or mediated or whatever you both went and saying judgment so that we stipulated to the facts all right what would the testimony would be if presented and so for example just like you say just depleted the facts your colleagues said for the purpose of you know the motions below we accepted what happened that he just said that it did happen that he moved and then the vehicle was pushed by the wind shear so it's not so much a matter of looking in their eyes and determining whether or not they're trying to count the people in the room it's whether or not accepting the act to be true the policy and the law of the state of the law and i should compel a finding that coverage you have to obtain the most true we weren't asking for a fact ruling at all  i guess what i what you're saying you're sort of suggesting that you know all they need to do is get into the room and then they could convince them that they're not trying to con anybody but it seems that the public policy has been to protect the insurance companies from fraud so i  guess when i say there's a protection in place the protection we put in place hundreds of years ago a right to a trial by jury which has evolved into a you know arbitration in a trial of fact and and that's what i was trying to you know i you know just as a follow up that you know continuously in contemporaneous lee transmitted force is alive and well that's the rule that applies  it is definitely a force there's no evidence to suggest otherwise and for those reasons covered should apply here thank you so much counsel during his argument the first one was a discussion or your question in regarding cases upon which he was relying from other jurisdictions he was correct in telling you run you can you don't have to have physical contact according to those statues that's not the illinois state if you don't like that you requires physical contact that's that's the first point and that and with all due respect to counsel he said that those cases stand for the proposition that when share satisfies physical contact now one of those cases deals with one sure not one of the cases he cites in his brief decided and the for a good course supreme court as decided that you need physical contact to avoid the potential for fraud there are as i said before there are numerous situations where there are independent witnesses to an accident where there is no question that a vehicle fled the scene and caused the accident but there was no physical contact there was really no potential for fraud in the specific cases but the rule that you need physical contact is written it's it's a black letter law and it's written in stone and you need physical contact in order to invoke the hit and run provisions of the policy he also talks about why he believes the term hit and run is ambiguous the storm hit and run is exactly the same term that appeared in city farms policy in for in the supreme court said the language of the statute it's clear and unambiguous the legislative intent can be ascertained from its provision without resort to other construction they specifically held that the term hidden run is not ambiguous and it does require physical contact and finally he says that we were not able to find any cases of that from other jurisdictions but that the directly with the question versus riggins have you all and it's the louisiana court of appeals in the next case they say their physical catholic contact with air generated generated by a passing vehicle is not the kind of physical contact required by the hit and run provision if it's directly on point couldn't be any more important friendly with respect to this indirect physical contact  continuous in contemporary rainiest force the difference between what council was studying this case is in this case is there was a hit and run vehicle a hit and run vehicle actually made physical contact with something that caused the between the alleged semi truck and this more cycle yes the court to reverse the trial courts and we ask for all a decision revers