Opinion ID: 1116146
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Uninsured Motorist Coverage Act

Text: Wickline, 530 So.2d at 714, directs us to the Mississippi uninsured motorist statute for guidance. Justice Prather, speaking for this Court, recognized that our uninsured motorist statute, not the decisions of foreign jurisdictions, governs our determination: Careful study ... makes clear that this Court looked too much to the decisions of other states . .. and too little to the language of the Mississippi statute. Recognizing that the statute controlled our decisions, this Court refined and clarified this state's law. It is now clear that the question is purely and simply one of reading the statute as written. First, who is an insured? There is no natural law definition of insured in uninsured motorist law, nor are we concerned with what the law ought to be. The judicial eye reads only the positive command of the statute. Continuing with our analysis, we asked of the statute: But can they stack? Stacking is firmly imbedded in our uninsured motorist law. The sort of stacking sought here, i.e., stacking multiple coverages within a single policy, has been mandated... . As with other types of stacking, the rationale offered is that multiple premiums are paid and multiple (stacked) coverages should be available. However, what is important is the fact that stacking has become a positive gloss upon our Uninsured Motorist Act. ... the operative provisions of the Mississippi Uninsured Motorists Act have been declared as a matter of positive law to provide that all classes statutory insureds may recover of the UM insurer all amounts he or she may be entitled to recover as damages from the uninsured motorist, limited only by the limits of UM coverage multiplied by the number of vehicles insured in the policy. (Emphasis added, Citations omitted). Our uninsured motorist statute provides: § 83-11-101. Automobile liability policies to contain uninsured motorist and property damage provisions. (1) No automobile liability insurance policy or contract shall be issued or delivered after January 1, 1967, unless 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 Law, as amended, under provisions approved by the commissioner of insurance... . The coverage herein required shall not be applicable where any insured named in the policy shall reject the coverage in writing and provided further, that unless the named insured requests such coverage in writing, such coverage need not be provided in any renewal policy where the named insured had rejected the coverage in connection with a policy previously issued to him by the same insurer. (Emphasis added). In interpreting our uninsured motorist statute, and in addressing the stacking issue in particular, this Court has compiled and adopted a significant body of jurisprudential rules of construction. Uninsured motorist coverage is designed to provide innocent injured motorists a means to recover all sums to which they are entitled from an uninsured motorist. The statute is to be liberally construed so as to achieve compensation. See Washington v. Georgia American Ins. Co., 540 So.2d 22, 24-25 (Miss. 1989); Rampy v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 278 So.2d 428, 431-432 (Miss. 1973). UM coverage is available to an injured insured until all sums which he shall be entitled to recover from the uninsured motorist have been recovered. See Harthcock v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 248 So.2d 456, 461-462 (Miss. 1971); Stevens, 345 So.2d 1041 (Miss. 1977); Brown v. Maryland Cas. Co. 521 So.2d 854 (Miss. 1987); Wickline, 530 So.2d 708, 711-712 (Miss. 1988).