Opinion ID: 1706314
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Was the motorcycle an uninsured vehicle?

Text: One of the statutory definitions of an uninsured motor vehicle is a motor vehicle as to which there is no bodily injury liability insurance. Mississippi Code 1942 Annotated section 8285-52 (Supp. 1968). The motorcycle was insured by Universal against bodily injury liability, but it excluded from the bodily injury coverage bodily injury to any person while on or getting on or alighting from the insured vehicle. When claim was made against James P. Horne by plaintiff, Universal denied coverage. Universal's policy contains uninsured motorists coverage. Code section 8285-51 requires that no automobile liability insurance policy shall be issued or delivered,    [U]nless it contains an endorsement or provisions 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 Act, as amended,   . There was no bodily injury liability insurance on the motorcycle available to plaintiff because it excluded riders. This Court said in Hodges v. Canal Insurance Co., 223 So.2d 630 (Miss. 1969), that the provisions of the uninsured motorists statute must be construed from the perspective of the injured insured, from whose standpoint a tort-feasor operating an automobile with no insurance available is an uninsured motorist. But Universal and State Farm say that the intent of the uninsured motorists statute is to afford to the public generally the same protection that it would have if the uninsured motorist had in force the minimum bodily liability insurance required by the Mississippi Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, or $5,000 for one person and $10,000 for any one accident, and that the liability coverage on the joint tort-feasor, Roark, fulfills the requirement of the uninsured motorists statute and excludes the application of the uninsured motorists coverage in the State Farm and Universal policies. There is nothing in our statute to suggest that the existence of Roark's liability insurance limits or extinguishes the coverage of the uninsured coverage provided by the State Farm and Universal policies. An injured person may recover damages only once, and one joint tort-feasor is released pro tanto upon payment by another joint tort-feasor of less than full damages. If plaintiff had been paid the full amount of her damages by Roark's insurer, she could not recover further damages from anyone. But the Roark settlement does not extinguish the coverage of the uninsured motorists insurance because plaintiff sustained uncollected damages of $10,000, after crediting the amount received from Roark. The discussion of the last question in this opinion is relevant to this question.