Case Name: In re Judy Hanna KOESTLER, Personal Representative of William D. Koestler, Deceased, for the Benefit of Judy Hanna KOESTLER, Stephanie Dawn Koestler, Scott Downing Koestler, and Christopher Kyle Koestler, Wrongful Death Beneficiaries, and Judy Hanna Koestler, Executrix of the Last Will and Testament of William D. Koestler. CASUALTY RECIPROCAL EXCHANGE v. FEDERAL INSURANCE COMPANY
Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Mississippi
Decision Date: 1992-08-31
Citations: 608 So. 2d 1258
Docket Number: No. 89-CA-0140
Parties: In re Judy Hanna KOESTLER, Personal Representative of William D. Koestler, Deceased, for the Benefit of Judy Hanna KOESTLER, Stephanie Dawn Koestler, Scott Downing Koestler, and Christopher Kyle Koestler, Wrongful Death Beneficiaries, and Judy Hanna Koestler, Executrix of the Last Will and Testament of William D. Koestler. CASUALTY RECIPROCAL EXCHANGE v. FEDERAL INSURANCE COMPANY.
Judges: ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., HAWKINS, P.J., and PRATHER and PITTMAN, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 608
Pages: 1258–1274

Head Matter:
In re Judy Hanna KOESTLER, Personal Representative of William D. Koestler, Deceased, for the Benefit of Judy Hanna KOESTLER, Stephanie Dawn Koestler, Scott Downing Koestler, and Christopher Kyle Koestler, Wrongful Death Beneficiaries, and Judy Hanna Koestler, Executrix of the Last Will and Testament of William D. Koestler. CASUALTY RECIPROCAL EXCHANGE v. FEDERAL INSURANCE COMPANY.
No. 89-CA-0140.
Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Aug. 31, 1992.
Rehearing Denied Dec. 3, 1992.
Philip Mansour, Sr., Mansour & Mans-our, Greenville, for appellant.
Stephen L. Thomas, Andrew N. Alexander, III, Lake Tindall, Hunger & Thack-ston, Greenville, for appellee.
Richard T. Phillips, Smith Phillips & Mitchell, Batesville, for amicus curiae.

Opinion:
ROBERTSON, Justice,
for the Court:
I.
This appeal in which insured seeks to stack uninsured motorist ("UM") liability insurance coverages presents a new twist. Today's insured had two policies providing in the aggregate five UM coverages, each with limits of liability well in excess of the statutory minimum. The question is whether our positive law of stacking permits enforcement of a clearly worded policy provision that denies stacking of coverages in excess of the statutory minimum.
The Circuit Court answered in the affirmative. Because our law respects freedom of contract, over and above its positively commanded mandatory minimums, we reverse.
II.
A.
On May 25, 1986, Anthony Raiford (sometimes "UM Raiford"), a totally uninsured motorist, was driving in an easterly direction on the Areola-Wayside Road in Washington County, Mississippi. Raiford crossed the center line and struck head on a 1984 Chrysler Fifth Avenue driven by William D. Koestler, age 53. As a direct and proximate result of Raiford's negligence, Koestler received severe and ultimately fatal personal injuries.
Koestler left surviving him a widow, Judy Hanna Koestler, and three children, an emancipated daughter, Stephanie Dawn Koestler, and two minor sons, Scott Downing Koestler and Christopher Kyle Koestler.
Prior to May 25, 1986, William D. Koestler had purchased from Casualty Reciprocal Exchange ("CRE"), a non-resident insurance company authorized to do business in Mississippi, two "Personal Auto Policies," including coverages for bodily injuries to and wrongful death of himself where caused by an uninsured motorist. Koestler owned five automobiles. Three were insured in one of the policies, the other two in the other, each in the amount of $250,000.00 per person injured or killed. Each provided in the event of multiple coverages CRE's liability "shall not exceed the highest applicable limit of liability under any one policy," i.e., $250,000.00. Koestler had paid a separate premium for each of these five coverages. Without dispute, each coverage was in full force and effect on the date of Koestler's death, and, independent of each other, each afforded coverage for wrongful death damages caused by UM Raiford, subject to its legally enforceable limits of liability.
Koestler had as well, prior to May 25, 1986, purchased from Federal Insurance Company ("Federal"), another foreign insurance company authorized to do business in Mississippi, a "Personal Excess Liability" policy providing excess coverage of $1,000,000.00 bodily injury or wrongful death caused by an uninsured motorist. Under the terms of this excess policy, Federal agreed to pay all damages sustained as a result of the negligent act of an uninsured motorist, over and above and in addition to the amounts Koestler recovered under any other applicable UM coverages, up to $1,000,000.00.
B.
On August 14, 1987, Judy Hanna Koestler, acting as the personal representative of William D. Koestler, deceased, pursuant to Miss.Code Ann. § 11-7-13 (1972) (as amended), filed her complaint in the Circuit Court of Washington County, Mississippi, naming CRE and Federal as Defendants. Executrix Koestler charged, first, that under the law of this state the five UM coverages CRE had provided her deceased husband should be stacked, affording a potential coverage of $1,250,000.00. She then claimed that this did not begin to cover all wrongful death damages caused by UM Raiford, by reason of which she demanded in addition the $1,000,000.00 of coverage Federal had afforded in its excess UM policy-
Throughout the pre-trial process, Executrix Koestler insisted that her wrongful death damages exceeded $2,250,000.00. CRE and Federal conceded the fact of damages, but in a far more modest sum. In pre-trial discovery, Executrix Koestler disclosed her intention to call as an expert witness an economist who would offer an opinion that the net cash value alone of Koestler's life on the date of his death was $2,016,899.00. CRE at all times insisted that the limit of its aggregate liability was $250,000.00, citing the unambiguous provision in each policy that, in the event of multiple UM coverages or multiple UM policies, CRE's aggregate liability would "not exceed" $250,000.00, the limit for each separate coverage.
On September 12, 1988, Executrix Koestler's case against CRE and Federal went to trial. During a recess, the parties entered into settlement negotiations and soon announced to the Court in chambers a settlement of the wrongful death claim, the essence of which was that the two defendant UM insurers would pay to Executrix Koestler $1,100,000.00, and thus limit their exposure, reserving the right to litigate among themselves their respective ultimate liabilities for this settlement sum, all of which would turn on the stacking issue. Specifically, the Circuit Court reported the settlement terms included:
(1) Each of the Defendants would pay $550,000 to the Koestlers;
(2) A judgment would be entered in favor of the Koestlers in the amount of $1,100,000 against the Defendants, and the Defendants would file cross-claims against each other for the purpose of . [litigating] the limit of liability issue....
In due course, CRE and Federal filed their cross-claims against each other. CRE claimed — as it had throughout — it owed only the first $250,000.00, the limits of coverage on one UM policy, in consequence of which Federal was responsible for all settlement sums over and above $250,000.00, some $850,000.00, to be exact. CRE thus demanded that Federal cough up $300,-000.00, over and above the $550,000.00 Federal had paid to Executrix Koestler.
Conversely, Federal took the position Executrix Koestler had been taking all along, that is, that the five CRE UM coverages could and should be stacked, in consequence of which CRE afforded coverage for $1,250,000.00, and since that sum exceeded the settlement amount of $1,100,-000.00, CRE should reimburse Federal for the entire $550,000.00 Federal had contributed to the settlement.
The Circuit Court, on January 18, 1989, entered a judgment resolving all issues in favor of Federal and against CRE. In summary, the Circuit Court stated:
. [T]he fact that CRE has a limitation provision in its policy which may be said to be clear and unambiguous is entirely irrelevant. What does matter, and it is the only thing that matters, is that Koestler was charged and paid separate premiums for each endorsement of uninsured motorist coverage in the amount of $250,000 for five vehicles covered by the two policies. Pursuant to the terms of the uninsured motorist statute, CRE is obligated to pay Koestler's heirs all sums which they were entitled to recover from the uninsured motorist as damages for the death of Koestler, whatever that amount might be up to the coverage paid for, $1,250,000.00.
The Court then entered judgment on Federal's cross-claim in the amount of $550,- 000.00 against CRE and dismissed CRE's cross-claim against Federal with prejudice.
CRE now appeals to this Court.
III.
Negligently driving uninsured motorists are a plague upon society. They inflict severe losses and at random, losses not in the least less severe that they are less noticed — by the media and legislators— than drunk driving death and damage. Different states have responded to the uninsured motorist menace in different ways. This state's initial response was enactment of the Uninsured Motorist Act of 1966. See Miss.Laws, ch. 524 (1966), originally codified as Miss.Code Ann. § 8285-51, et seq. (1942). That act has been amended and is presently codified as Miss.Code Ann. § 83-11-101, et seq. (1972). The statute's modest remedy has been demonstrably imperfect from the beginning, its required coverage being but the minimum amount required under the Mississippi Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, so that at the time Koestler bought his coverages, the UM act required only that:
No automobile liability insurance policy or contract shall be issued or delivered ., unless it contains an endorsement or provision undertaking to pay the insured all sums which he shall be legally entitled to recover as damages for bodily injury or death from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle, within limits which shall be no less than those set forth in the Mississippi Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Law....
Those minimum limits at the time were $10,000.00 for damages or losses to any one person and an aggregate of $20,000.00 for all damages or losses caused in a single accident. Miss.Code Ann. § 63-15-11 (1987).
It has for years been a fact of life that many of our citizens and families own more than one automobile, and so we quickly began to find that persons injured by uninsured motorists held multiple minimum UM coverages, each of which by its terms afforded protection for the injuries inflicted by the uninsured motorist. See Cossitt v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 551 So.2d 879, 884 (Miss.1989). In the wake of the woeful inadequacy of the statutory minimum coverage, the question gradually arose whether the insured could recover on each of the insurance contracts he held— somewhat as in the case of life insurance or health and accident insurance where an insured or beneficiary often recovers under multiple policies — or whether the insured was limited to a single coverage.
Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Co. v. Roberts, 323 So.2d 536 (Miss.1975), first found contract and statute to allow an insured to aggregate coverages under three separate policies. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Bridges, 350 So.2d 1379 (Miss.1977), involved a single policy insuring three vehicles upon which three separate coverages were afforded. We again read the act into the policy and allowed stacking. Matters have proceeded apace, and our cases have accepted an ever expanding role for stacking. See, e.g., Thiac v. State Farm Automobile Insurance Co., 569 So.2d 1217 (Miss.1990); Cossitt v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 551 So.2d 879 (Miss.1989); Brown v. Maryland Casualty Co., 521 So.2d 854 (Miss.1987); State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Kuehling, 475 So.2d 1159 (Miss.1985), and Government Employees Insurance Co. v. Brown, 446 So.2d 1002 (Miss.1984). The theory of these cases without exception has been that insurer and insured have entered two or more contracts covering the same eventuality and that the insured may enforce these contracts according to their terms. To be sure, these contracts may have been encouraged by statute, and at times we have found ambiguities and resolved them in the insureds' favor. This does not alter the fact that the legal origin of stacking is contract and not statute. In addition, these cases all concerned the stacking of mandatory minimum UM coverages, a point of importance as will presently appear.
Insurers have responded to our cases (and, no doubt, those of other jurisdictions) by increasingly clear and explicit policy language which precludes stacking. No one today seriously argues the CRE policy language is ambiguous. The Circuit Court found the coverage limitation "to be clear and unambiguous" and then found this to be "entirely irrelevant." The unspoken premise of the decision below is the common law principle that contracts contrary to public policy are unenforceable, no matter how clear or unambiguous they may be. See, e.g., Hertz Commercial Leasing Division v. Morrison, 567 So.2d 832, 834-35 (Miss.1990), and cases there cited.
Today's issue — whether UM coverages in excess of mandatory minimums may be stacked — is implicit in Cossitt v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 551 So.2d 879 (Miss.1989). Cossitt arose out of an accident occurring on April 10, 1984, covered by a liability insurance policy which provided uninsured motorist coverage in the amount of $25,000.00 on each of three separate vehicles, upon which the insured had paid three separate uninsured motorist premiums. At the time, the statutorily required minimum limits of liability required to be included in uninsured motorist coverages in all policies was $10,000.00 per person and $20,000.00 per occurrence. At least a portion of the UM coverage Nationwide had written in the Cossitt case was in excess of that statutorily required. Cos-sitt, 551 So.2d at 883-84, held three $25,-000.00 coverages should be stacked but concentrated on other "stacking" issues and did not address or decide the point now before us. Expansive though our readings have been, we have stopped short of deciding, in the absence of contract to the contrary, that uninsured motorist coverages in excess of the minimum mandated by statute may be stacked to the extent of the excess.
B.
In the wake of our caselaw, CRE concedes — as it must — that it has a minimum liability on each of the five coverages of $10,000.00, or a stacked aggregate of $50,-000.00, and it concedes that this point has been settled at least since Lowery v. State Farm Automobile Insurance Co., 285 So.2d 767 (Miss.1973). CRE concedes as well that it has by contract obligated itself in excess of this minimum obligation, in that it has written UM coverage with a $250,000.00 limit of liability. These concessions made, CRE insists the rule is, its liability after stacking is the mandatory minimum provided by law, multiplied by the number of coverages in force, or the limit of liability provided by contract, whichever is the greater. By appealing the Circuit Court's judgment, CRE presents the question whether it must stack in its insured's favor the five UM coverages in excess of the minimum statutory requirement for each vehicle, and in excess of the contractual limit of liability for one such coverage. CRE presents this question against the backdrop of unmistakable language in each of the two policies, applicable to each of the five coverages Koestler held, that its liability be limited to the maximum limit of liability under any one coverage, i.e., $250,000.00. There is simply nothing unclear about these words.
Insurance policies are privately made law. Except as limited by the public law, we respect the right of insurer and insured to contract freely one with the other. See, e.g., Perry v. Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Company, 251 Miss. 544, 550, 170 So.2d 628, 630 (1965). This is another powerful public policy our law accommodates with that regarding the UM menace. Our Uninsured Motorist Act does indeed inhibit freedom of contract, but not beyond its terms. We held early that insurer and insured as
free to contract as to uninsured motorist coverage in any respect so long as the required coverage is not cut down by the policy provisions.
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Talley, 329 So.2d 52, 54 (Miss. 1976) (quoting Talbot v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 291 So.2d 699, 701 (Miss.1974)). We have repeatedly held
[a]ny attempt to contractually limit an insurer's duty of coverage . may not be effective to narrow the requirements of . [the] statute,
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Nester, 459 So.2d 787, 789 (Miss.1984). But the act "allows insurers to contract [as they please] with regard to excess coverage." Wickline v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., 530 So.2d 708, 717 (Miss.1988) (quoting State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Kuehling, 475 So.2d 1159, 1162 (Miss. 1985)). Put another way, there is no public policy against limiting insurance coverages. Over and above legally mandated minimums, the parties have always remained free to agree as they wish. The Act but reinforces the point when it empowers the parties to contract for coverage "over the minimum requirement."
And so CRE is on target when it calls our attention to our several cases holding that medical payment coverages in uninsured motorist insurance policies are not subject to stacking. See, e.g., State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Acosta, 479 So.2d 1089 (Miss.1985); State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Scitzs, 394 So.2d 1371, 1372-73 (Miss. 1981); see also, Tucker v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 609 F.Supp. 1574, 1580 (S.D.Miss.1985). The point is that medical payment coverages are not statutorily required, and we have in that area allowed private lawmaking to prevail; that is, unambiguously worded policy provisions may limit medical payment coverages to a single coverage, notwithstanding that there are multiple coverages and that the insured has paid a separate premium for each UM medical payment coverage. These cases are consistent with the view that only statutorily required ÜM liability coverages are subject to stacking.
It is no answer that CRE charged and Koestler paid a separate premium for each of his five UM coverages. This but begs the question, what coverage was purchased by what premium?, and we find our answer in contract and not natural law. See Wickline, 530 So.2d at 714. The "coverage" Koestler purchased with each premium was the aggregate UM package of each policy. This includes the act implicitly incorporated into each coverage. It includes as well the limits of liability, per person and per occurrence, and, as well, the multiple policies limit. But a moment's reflection makes clear, actuarially, the premium charged for each coverage will be higher, if all five $250,000.00 coverages may be stacked, than if the multiple policy limitation clause is enforceable. What is important is that the policies clearly told Koestler what coverage his premiums purchased for him, and what limits of liability entailed that coverage. No one argues Koestler did not read his policies or was not aware of their contents, nor could they with legal effect.
To be sure, our stacking cases routinely take note of the payment of separate premiums. See, e.g., Harris v. Magee, 573 So.2d 646, 652 (Miss.1990); Cossitt, 551 So.2d at 884; Brown v. Maryland Casualty Co., 521 So.2d 854, 856 (Miss.1987); Government Employees Ins. Co. v. Brown, 446 So.2d 1002, 1005-06 (Miss.1984); Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Ins. Co. v. Roberts, 323 So.2d 536, 538 (Miss.1975). This is but an equitable note undergirding the fairness of the stacking mandated and enforceable by reason of contract. E.g., Pearthree v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., 373 So.2d 267, 270 (Miss.1979) ("a construction permitting . [stacking] flows from the ambiguity of the limiting clauses ., not from the charging of separate premiums"). No particular premium purchases any particular UM coverage beyond the limits of liability language in the policy.
What we have before us is limits-of-liability language no one could fail to understand. That language told Koestler, in the event he was protected by multiple UM coverages
the maximum limit of our liability under all the policies shall not exceed the highest applicable limit of liability under any one policy.
Importing the act into each policy, the sum CRE concedes it must pay still well exceeds — by $200,000.00 — the minimum limits mandated by Section 83-11-101 and the Mississippi Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Law. We have no authority to enlarge the insurance contract into one (we wish) the parties may have written.
The UM coverage under each Koestler-CRE policy was limited to $250,000.00 per person per accident. There were five separate vehicles insured in the two policies. The statute mandated that each vehicle have coverage of $10,000.00 per person. Under our positive law of stacking, CRE provided coverage of not less than $50,-000.00 per person. As a practical matter, that law of contract enforcement requires that CRE pay at least $10,000.00 under each of the five coverages. How CRE allocates the remaining $200,000.00 of its liability among the two policies and their five coverages is beyond our concern today.
We see a two-fold remedy for those who covet Federal's (for the moment) view of the law. We have no doubt insureds like Koestler could pay a greater premium and purchase multiple UM coverages without the limitation clause, if not now, then soon. Money and the opportunity for profit can move the bureaucratically inert, even in the insurance industry. Beyond this, there is the public remedy across the street. If the Legislature disagrees with our action today, it may well amend the UM statute. It is within the legislative prerogative to provide, in the case of multiple UM coverages or policies, where the insured has paid and the insurer has received a separate premium, the insured may stack and thus recover on each such coverage or policy otherwise according to its terms, and that any language in any such coverage or policy to the contrary is a contract against public policy and is, thus, unenforceable. To date the Legislature has not so enacted, nor may we, consistent with our UM renderings heretofore.
The judgment of the Circuit Court is reversed. Judgment should be and is entered in favor of CRE and against Federal in the sum of $300,000.00, pursuant to the CRE-Federal settlement agreement.
REVERSED AND RENDERED.
ROY NOBLE LEE, C.J., HAWKINS, P.J., and PRATHER and PITTMAN, JJ., concur.
SULLIVAN, J., dissents with written opinion, joined by McRAE, J.
BANKS, J., dissents with written opinion, joined by DAN M. LEE, P.J., and SULLIVAN and McRAE, JJ.
McRAE, J., dissents with written opinion, joined by SULLIVAN and BANKS, JJ.
.The policy language at issue reads as follows: LIMIT OF LIABILITY
The limit of bodily injury liability shown in the Declarations for "each person" for Uninsured Motorist Coverage is our maximum limit of liability for all damages for bodily injury sustained by any one person in any one accident. Subject to this limit for "each person," the limit of bodily injury liability shown in the Declarations for "each accident" for Uninsured Motorists Coverage is our maximum limit of liability for all damages for bodily injury resulting from any one accident. The limit of property damage liability shown in the Declarations for "each accident" for Uninsured Motorists Coverage is our maximum limit of liability for all damages to all property resulting from any one accident. This is the most we will pay regardless of the number of:
1. Covered persons;
2. Claims made;
3. Vehicles or premiums shown in the Declarations; or
4. Vehicles involved in the accident.
The policies also contained the following provision:
If this policy and any other auto insurance policy issued to you by us apply to the same accident, the maximum limit of our liability under all the policies shall not exceed the highest applicable limit of liability under any one policy.
. Following its prescription of mandatory minimum coverage, Section 83-11-101(2) reads:
however, at the option of the insured, the uninsured motorist limits may be increased to limits not to exceed those provided in the policy of property damage liability insurance of the insured or such lesser limits as the insured elects to carry over the minimum requirement set forth by this section.
Thus, the insured is not required to purchase excess UM coverage but may, if he wishes — and if the UM insurer is willing to sell it to him. Nothing in the Act requires an insurer to sell an insured more than minimum coverage.