Opinion ID: 2384032
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Deduction of Workers' Compensation Payments

Text: We agree with the conclusion of the Court of Appeals that the trial court erred in allowing the workers' compensation payments to Jesse to be offset against the uninsured motorist coverage. Travelers, in advancing its contention, expressly disclaims any purpose of asserting subrogation rights, but rather relies on the policy provisions. In the ensuing discussion we make use of portions of Judge Kennedy's opinion without the use of quotation marks. Travelers maintains that it is entitled to set off the workmen's compensation payments because of the following language in the policy: 2. Any amount payable under the terms of this insurance because of bodily injury sustained in an accident by a person who is an Insured under this insurance shall be reduced by:       (b) The amount paid and the present value of all amounts payable on account of such bodily injury under any Worker's Compensation law, disability benefits law or any similar law. Travelers' position on this point is defeated by Douthet v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 546 S.W.2d 156 (Mo. banc 1977). In Douthet , the uninsured motorist carrier undertook to deduct workers' compensation payments received by the plaintiff. The terms of its policy, like the one before us, provided for such a deduction. This Court held that the provision violated § 379.203 and so was invalid. 546 S.W.2d at 159-60. The deduction of the workers' compensation benefits was not permitted. Travelers says that Douthet is not controlling, because in our case Travelers was both the workers' compensation carrier and the uninsured motorist carrier. It points to language in the Douthet opinion, as follows: In this case, the defendant did not create or pay for and was not the source of the workmen's compensation payments received by plaintiff. 546 S.W.2d at 159-60. By that language, Travelers says, the Court was distinguishing between a case in which two different insurance companies were carrying the uninsured motorist and the workers' compensation coverage, and one such as this one, in which the same company was carrying both. We do not think, however, that the quoted language was intended to narrow the holding of the case as Travelers contends, or to rule on an issue which was not involved in the case then before the Court. The nub of the Douthet opinion is contained in the following paragraph: The holdings in Cameron, Galloway and Webb that § 379.203 requires that coverage in the amounts required by the Safety Responsibility Law not be diminished by contractual limitation, absent express statutory authority therefor, govern the outcome of this case. It would violate the public policy expressed in § 379.203 to permit diminution of coverage by requiring credit for workmen's compensation payments. Hence, we hold that the policy provision requiring reduction of sums payable under the policy by workmen's compensation payments is void. 546 S.W.2d at 159. We hold on the basis of Douthet that the policy language quoted above, reducing the uninsured motorist liability by the amount of workers' compensation benefits, was ineffective because of the public policy implicit in § 379.203, and that Travelers is not entitled to offset the workers' compensation benefits paid to Jesse against its liability under the uninsured motorist coverage. Because Douthet rules the points so clearly, there is no occasion to consider cases from other states. Item 3 of the exclusions under Part B, quoted above, provides that the uninsured motorist coverage is not to inure directly or indirectly to the benefit of any worker's compensation ... carrier. The word any is not qualified so as to exclude Travelers, and, if the setoff here claimed were allowed, there would surely be an indirect benefit to Travelers. These policy provisions fortify our conclusion that the automobile insurance and the worker's compensation coverage were effected by separate insurance contracts and that the setoff should not be allowed.