Opinion ID: 2450555
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: direct action

Text: The UIM carriers have raised as a collateral issue whether they should be able to defend before the jury in a suit against the UIM carrier in the name of the tortfeasor rather than in their own name, claiming that it is fundamentally unfair to take aim against them as a target defendant. At this point in the evolution of jurors to the point where many are painfully aware of the cost of their own insurance premiums, one might speculate as to whether an insurance company is really a target defendant, or whether it is as much of a target defendant as corporations from other industries with whom jurors have no identifiable financial interest, corporations which, when sued, must defend in their own name. In any event, without indulging in any such speculation, we must recognize that the suit to recover UIM coverage is a direct action no different from a suit to recover UM coverage (discussed supra, Part I), and we are not free to create legal fictions. The tortfeasor is not a party unless the UIM carrier elects to advance the amount of the policy limits of the tortfeasor's policy so as to avoid his release. Then the UIM carrier has the option to keep the tortfeasor in the case by naming him as a third party defendant upon whom ultimate liability will be fixed by virtue of subrogation. There is no more reason to create a legal fiction by substituting the name of the tortfeasor for the UIM carrier, when the carrier alone is the real party in interest in UIM cases, than there is reason to do so when dealing with UM coverage. The issue of permitting a legal fiction to be employed has been laid to rest in uninsured motorist claims which involve a direct action against the UM carrier in Wheeler v. Creekmore, Ky., 469 S.W.2d 559 (1971). Underinsured and uninsured carriers should be treated similarly, as their purpose and the intent of their coverage is similar.