Opinion ID: 1791075
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: can an employee who was injured while driving her employer's automobile on company business stack her employer's uninsured motorist coverage?

Text: ¶ 6. The main argument of Glennon and Laskey is that this Court has created a subclass within UM Class II insureds; namely, employees driving company vehicles. They claim that this Court has never disallowed stacking by a Class II employee. State Farm responds that the decisive factor is whether the UM coverage for the separate vehicles is on one or multiple policies. State Farm argues that this Court has never allowed a Class II insured, employee or otherwise, to stack the UM coverage from multiple policies of the named insured. ¶ 7. A review of this Court's uninsured motorist cases reveals that coverage was first created in 1956 by the automobile insurance industry in an effort to alleviate some of the problems being created by an increasing number of uninsured motorists. Rampy v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 278 So.2d 428, 431-32 (Miss.1973). A decade later, the Mississippi Uninsured Motorist Act was enacted, mandating that all insurance policies issued after January 1, 1967, must include UM coverage, unless specifically rejected by the insured in writing. Miss.Code Ann. §§ 83-11-101 to 111(1999). A 1980 amendment to the Act added the concept of underinsured motor vehicles to the definition of uninsured motor vehicle. Miss.Code Ann. § 83-11-103(c)(iii)(1999). An underinsured vehicle is one in which the liability insurer of such vehicle has provided limits of bodily injury liability for its insured which are less than the limits applicable to the injured person provided under his uninsured motorist coverage. Id. ¶ 8. This Court has long recognized the remedial purpose of the UM Act and has stated that it must be construed in light of the purpose and policy of the statute... [it was] enacted for the benefit of injured persons traveling on the public highways ... to give the same protection to the person injured by an uninsured motorist as he would have had if he had been injured in an accident caused by an automobile covered by a standard liability policy. Rampy, 278 So.2d at 432. Such provisions are to be liberally construed to accomplish such purpose. Id. To further this stated purpose, the idea of allowing an injured party to stack UM policies in order to obtain complete restitution emerged. ¶ 9. In 1971, this Court first permitted stacking of UM policies, holding that the uninsured motorists coverage of each policy is available to the injured insured until all sums which he shall be entitled to recover from the uninsured motorist have been recovered. Harthcock v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 248 So.2d 456, 461-62 (Miss.1971). However, this Court soon noted that the statute creates two distinct classes of insureds with different coverage accruing to each class. Stevens v. United States Fid. & Guar. Co., 345 So.2d 1041, 1043 (Miss.1977). Class I insureds include the person named on the policy, that person's spouse, and while residents of the same household, relatives of either. Id. Class II insureds include guest passengers and permissive users. Id. ¶ 10. Initially, stacking was only available to Class I insureds, but later this Court allowed a Class II insured to stack coverage under a standard family UM policy, where there had been two premiums paid on two vehicles, under a single policy. Brown v. Maryland Cas. Co., 521 So.2d 854, 856-57 (Miss.1987). The next year, this Court permitted the wrongful death beneficiaries of a Class II insured to stack benefits where four premiums were paid under a single policy covering the accident vehicle and three other vehicles. Wickline v. United States Fid. & Guar. Co., 530 So.2d 708, 714 (Miss.1988). One year later, this Court allowed three Class II insureds (where one was an employee) to stack a commercial UM coverage, where the church had paid three premiums for their three buses on a single policy. Cossitt v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 551 So.2d 879, 884 (Miss.1989). The following year, this Court went against the almost unanimous voice of all other jurisdictions and allowed a Class II insured employee to stack the coverage on all twenty-two vehicles contained in his employer's single commercial fleet policy. Harris v. Magee, 573 So.2d 646, 652 (Miss.1990). ¶ 11. Two years later, this Court restricted the use of stacking by Class II insureds in State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Davis, 613 So.2d 1179 (Miss.1992). The lower court had permitted a Class II insured to stack the UM coverage from the accident vehicle with the UM coverage of another vehicle owned by the same person, even though the second vehicle was covered on a separate policy. Id. at 1179. In a 7-1 decision, this Court reversed and rendered judgment in favor of the insurer, holding that Class II insureds are only entitled to UM benefits from their own policies and/or the policy covering the accident vehicle. Id. at 1179-80 (emphasis added). Justice Pittman, writing for the majority, distinguished the Wickline decision by noting that in Wickline all the cars were covered under the same policy, while in the case at hand, the ... cars are all covered under separate policies. Id. at 1182. ¶ 12. The dissent argues that Class distinctions are not provided for under the UM statute. With all due respect, while this is literally true, a plain reading of the statute reveals this is substantively incorrect. Even though the terms Class I and Class II do not actually appear in the statute, the statute clearly delineates two different classes of insureds: The term insured shall mean the named insured and, while resident of the same household, the spouse of any such named insured and relatives of either, while in a motor vehicle or otherwise, and any person who uses, with the consent, expressed or implied, of the named insured, the motor vehicle to which the policy applies, and a guest in such motor vehicle to which the policy applies, or the personal representative of any of the above. Miss.Code Ann. § 83-11-103(b)(1999)(emphasis added). It is important to note that the first part of the definition refers to A motor vehicle while the latter part refers to THE motor vehicle to which the policy applies. Further, the operative phrase, or otherwise, means that a Class I insured is covered whether in an automobile or not. The Class I insured is covered in any automobile, as a pedestrian, or even in the bathtubif an uninsured motorist came flying through the window and caused an injury. In contrast, there is no or otherwise phrase modifying the Class II insured clause. As such, a Class II insuredoften called a permissive user or guest passengeris only covered because he or she is in the covered automobile. ¶ 13. The dissent further argues that: Class status is irrelevant to the issue of UM coverage.... With all due respect, this is simply a misstatement of the case law. While admittedly Wickline and Cossitt did somewhat blur the distinction between Class I and Class II insureds, subsequent decisions have clearly reestablished that these classifications are firmly embedded in our law and are the basis for determining the rights/remedies of injured parties and the liabilities of insurance companies. This Court has long recognized that the plain language of the statute creates these two classifications of insureds: The statute creates two distinct classes of insureds with different coverage accruing to each class. The first class consists of the named insured, and residents of the same household, his spouse and relatives of either. Their coverage against injury inflicted by uninsured motorists is quite liberal, extending to all circumstances when a member of the first class is injured by an uninsured motorist. This broad protection to members of the first class arises by virtue of the phrase while in a motor vehicle or otherwise. The second class consists of any person who uses, with the consent, expressed or implied, of the named insured, the motor vehicle to which the policy applies. Stevens, 345 So.2d at 1043. We somewhat blurred this distinction when this Court looked too much to the decisions of other states, ... and too little to the language of the Mississippi statute. Wickline, 530 So.2d at 714 (internal citations omitted). However, only two years later this Court reaffirmed this class distinction: Linda, as cross-appellant, argues that Larry was a named insured and therefore, a Class I insured for the purposes of uninsured motorist coverage.... In Stevens, 345 So.2d at 1043, we recognized that this statute creates two distinct classes of insureds. The first class consists of the named insured, and while residents of the same household, his spouse and relatives of either. The coverage to this class of insureds extends to those situations while in a motor vehicle or otherwise. The second class of insureds consists of any person who uses, with the consent, expressed or implied, of the named insured, the motor vehicle to which the policy applies. The record clearly indicates that Larry was in this latter class and this assignment is without merit. Harris v. Magee, 573 So.2d 646, 656 (Miss. 1990). See also Box v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 692 So.2d 54, 58 (Miss.1997) (Box, as a passenger in one of the Williamses' cars, and not a member of the Williams household nor a named insured, did not meet the definition of an insured under the State Farm policies issued to the Williams family covering the vehicles not involved in the accident in question.). The dissent's assertion that the statute and case law reveal there is no basis for insured classification is simply not correct. See Mississippi Farm Bureau Cas. Ins. Co. v. Curtis, 678 So.2d 983, 988 (Miss.1996)(Section 83-11-103(b) distinguishes two categories of insured: Class 1: The named insured and, while resident of the same household, the named insured's spouse and relatives of either, while in a motor vehicle or otherwise. Class 2: A guest passenger in such motor vehicles to which the policy applies.); Meadows v. Mississippi Farm Bureau Ins. Co., 634 So.2d 108, 111 (Miss.1994) (Meadows and Jetton are Class 2 `insureds' limited to the uninsured motorist coverage on the 1972 Chevrolet truck in which they were passengers at the time of the automobile collision with the uninsured motorist.); Miller v. Allstate Ins. Co., 631 So.2d 789, 795 (Miss.1994) (The operative Allstate UM coverage language is not contrary to the Mississippi Uninsured Motorist Act. In this policy, coverage for Class 1 insureds, the policyholder and all resident relatives, is not restricted to any particular vehicle. However, the coverage for Class 2 insureds is restricted to the `insured auto.' This is a limitation which is consistent with Mississippi Supreme Court precedent.); Mississippi Farm Bureau Cas. Ins. Co. v. Curtis, 678 So.2d 983, 988 (Miss.1996) (Section 83-11-103(b) distinguishes two categories of insured: Class 1: The named insured and, while resident of the same household, the named insured's spouse and relatives of either, while in a motor vehicle or otherwise. Class 2: A guest passenger in such motor vehicles to which the policy applies.). ¶ 14. In the case sub judice, we have Class II employees attempting to stack the UM coverage of their employer's three vehicles that were insured on three separate policies. While it is true that in all the cases cited by Glennon and Lashley this Court did not deny stacking to a Class II employee, it is also true that in all the cases cited the UM coverages being stacked were all contained in one policy. Further, it is also true that this Court has never permitted a Class II insured, employee or otherwise, to stack the UM coverage of separate policies covering vehicles they were not occupying at the time of the accident, and this Court declines to do so today. Therefore, this issue is without merit.