Opinion ID: 1736759
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Availability of Punitive Damages Under UIM Coverage

Text: Omni asks us to construe Alabama's UIM statute so as to preclude the recovery of punitive damages. The UIM provision in the policy issued to Foreman provides: UNINSURED MOTORISTS COVERAGE We will pay damages which an insured person is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle because of bodily injury sustained by an insured person, caused by accident and arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the uninsured motor vehicle. The policy includes in its definition of an uninsured motor vehicle a motor vehicle to which a bodily injury liability bond or policy applies at the time of the accident but its limit for bodily injury liability is not enough to pay the full amount an insured person is entitled to recover. Section 32-7-23(a) states that no policy of automobile liability insurance will be delivered or issued for delivery in Alabama unless coverage is provided therein ... 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, sickness or disease, including death, resulting therefrom. The statute further provides for coverage for the insured when [t]he sum of the limits of liability under all bodily injury liability bonds and insurance policies available to an injured person after an accident is less than the damages which the injured person is legally entitled to recover. § 32-7-23(b)(4). We read the governing statutory law into the insurance policy. See Higgins v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 291 Ala. 462, 465, 282 So.2d 301, 303 (1973) (dealing with the uninsured-motorist statute and holding that the statute states what the coverage shall include and must be read into the policy contract). The resolution of this issue therefore turns upon our construction of the statute rather than a construction of the Omni contract of insurance. Omni relies upon cases such as League of Women Voters v. Renfro, 292 Ala. 128, 131, 290 So.2d 167, 169 (1974), for the rule that this Court may consider the results that would flow from giving the language of the statute one particular meaning over anotherin other words, the practical effect a proposed construction would have. Omni observes that this Court has recognized that the legislative purpose in enacting the UIM statute was to compensate. See Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Turner, 662 So.2d 237, 239 (Ala.1995). Omni then concludes that because punitive damages serve no compensatory purpose, punitive damages should not be recoverable under the UIM statute. Omni makes challenging public-policy arguments concerning the wisdom of allowing punitive damages to be awarded against a UIM carrier that has done no wrong; it warns of the risk of increased premiums; and it asks us not to draw any solace from what it calls the carrier's illusory right to be subrogated against the tortfeasor. The obstacle in taking the road that Omni invites us to travel is the premise that the statute as written is ambiguous and subject to construction. Section 32-7-23 requires the payment of sums that the insured is legally entitled to recover. The statute then indiscriminately lists as causative factors bodily injury, sickness or disease, including death, resulting therefrom. We cannot agree with Omni's argument. First, when an injured person sues a tortfeasor and offers substantial evidence of conduct that this Court has recognized as appropriate to support an award of punitive damages, the trial court that takes the issue of punitive damages from a jury will see its judgment reversed. Under such circumstances, the injured party is legally entitled to recover such punitive damages as the jury may in its discretion award, as happened in this proceeding when the jury awarded $60,000 in punitive damages. See, e.g., Ex parte Norwood Hodges Motor Co., 680 So.2d 245 (Ala. 1996). Second, the Legislature included death as one of the circumstances giving rise to the right to recover under the UIM statute. It is hornbook law that in Alabama, the only damages a plaintiff is allowed to recover in an action for wrongful death are punitive damages. Lance, Inc. v. Ramanauskas, 731 So.2d 1204, 1221 (Ala.1999). For this Court to write into the UIM statute a limitation to the recovery only of compensatory damages in instances other than wrongful death would require us to rewrite an unambiguous statute. We cannot do so, because, we have held: `Words used in a statute must be given their natural, plain, ordinary, and commonly understood meaning, and where plain language is used a court is bound to interpret that language to mean exactly what it says. If the language of the statute is unambiguous, then there is no room for judicial construction and the clearly expressed intent of the legislature must be given effect.' Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Alabama, Inc. v. Nielsen, 714 So.2d 293, 296 (Ala.1998) (quoting IMED Corp. v. Systems Eng'g Assocs. Corp., 602 So.2d 344, 346 (Ala. 1992)). However, `the settled rule of this court is that it will not substitute its judgment for that of the legislative body charged with the primary duty and responsibility of determining the question.' Alabama State Fed'n of Labor v. McAdory, 246 Ala. 1, 13, 18 So.2d 810, 819 (1944) (quoting Zahn v. Board of Public Works, 274 U.S. 325, 328, 47 S.Ct. 594, 71 L.Ed. 1074 (1927)). We recognize that a split of authority exists on the question whether punitive damages can be recovered from an UIM carrier. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has previously addressed this very question and has concluded that Alabama's UIM statute permits the recovery of punitive damages. See Lavender v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 828 F.2d 1517 (11th Cir.1987). The Court of Civil Appeals addressed this question in Hill v. Campbell, 804 So.2d 1107 (Ala.Civ.App.2001), and reached the same conclusion. In Hill, the Court of Civil Appeals reviewed similar decisions from several of our sister states. Perhaps the holding in this case will produce the same result as that which occurred in Tennessee. Several years after the Tennessee Supreme Court decided Mullins v. Miller, 683 S.W.2d 669 (Tenn. 1984), in which it construed the Tennessee statute providing UIM coverage to include coverage for punitive damages, the Tennessee legislature amended Tennessee's UIM statute to provide for the recovery of compensatory damages only. See Carr v. Ford, 833 S.W.2d 68 (Tenn.1992). The prerogative to make such a change in Alabama law is reposed in the Legislature and not in this Court. See Art. III, Ala. Const. of 1901: Sec. 43. Separation of powers. In the government of this state, except in the instances in this Constitution hereinafter expressly directed or permitted, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them; to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men. Because Alabama's UIM statute clearly requires that an insured be compensated for all damages he or she is legally entitled to recover, and because Foreman is legally entitled to recover punitive damages, the trial court properly denied Omni's motion for a JML as to the punitive-damages award.