Opinion ID: 1678714
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: were stacy wickline and plaintiffs insureds under the uninsured motorist coverage of each of the four (4) carter vehicles covered by the u.s.f. & g. policy so as to entitle them to stack the uninsured motorist coverage of each vehicle?

Text: The question presented here is whether a guest passenger can aggregate the owner's coverages on the owner's other vehicles. The trial court first addressed the status of Stacy Wickline as an insured, and concluded that the Wicklines were insureds under the U.S.F. & G. policy only as to the 1979 Thunderbird in which Wickline was a passenger and that they could not stack the coverages of the other three Carter vehicles. Controlling to the determination of this question are (1) the uninsured motorist statute Miss. Code Ann. 83-11-101 et seq., and (2) the U.S.F. & G. policy. The pertinent statutory sections are as follows: No automobile liability insurance policy ... shall be issued ... unless it contains an endorsement ... to pay the insured ... damages for bodily injury or death from the owner or operator of an uninsured vehicle. Miss. Code Ann. § 83-11-101(1). ... . 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, 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. The definition of the term insured given in this section shall apply only to the uninsured motorist portion of the policy. Miss. Code Ann. § 83-11-103(b). The uninsured motorist provision of the U.S.F. & G. policy reads as follows: Part C Uninsured motorist coverage We will pay damages which a covered person is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle because of (1) bodily injury sustained as a covered person.... Covered person as used in this endorsement means: (1) you or any family member; (2) any other person occupying your covered auto; (3) any person for damages that person is entitled to recover because of bodily injury to which this coverage applies sustained by a person described in (1) or (2) above. The trial court determined that the statute created two classes of insured: (1) Class One insureds encompass 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. Clearly, Stacy Wickline did not come within this class. The trial court then determined Wickline did come within the remaining statutory definition of insureds which category is referred to as Class Two insureds and includes a guest passenger. The analysis applied by the trial court was that, since Wickline had no connection with the other three Carter vehicles and was a Class Two insured, no stacking would be permitted. This Court's earlier cases talk much of Class One and Class Two insureds. See Aetna Casualty & Surety Company v. Barker, 451 So.2d 731 (Miss. 1984); Lowery v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 285 So.2d 767 (Miss. 1974). Careful study of those cases makes clear that this Court looked too much to the decisions of other states, particularly Virginia [ Allstate Insurance Co. v. Meeks, 207 Va. 897, 153 S.E.2d 222 (1967)] 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 in the opinions in Pearthree v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., 373 So.2d 267 (Miss. 1979), and most recently in Brown v. Maryland Casualty Co., 521 So.2d 854 (Miss. 1987). It is now clear that the question is purely and simply one of reading the statutes 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. In relevant part § 83-11-103(b) defines insured as a guest in such motor vehicle to which the policy applies, or the personal representative of [such guest]. The U.S.F. & G. policy in issue applied to the 1979 Thunderbird owned by Mills Carter, Jr. Stacy Wickline was a guest in that motor vehicle. Marie Wickline and Sharlotte Wickline Starc are her personal representatives and are thus insureds within § 83-11-103(b). But can they stack? Stacking is firmly imbedded in our uninsured motorist law. The sort of stacking here sought, i.e., stacking multiple coverages within a single policy, has been mandated in Brown, Pearthree and Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Bridges, 350 So.2d 1379 (Miss. 1977). See also St. Arnaud v. Allstate Insurance Co., 501 F. Supp. 192 (S.D.Miss. 1980). 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. No one would question stacking were Mills Carter, Jr., the named insured, the plaintiff. A combined reading of Brown, Pearthree and Bridges establishes as much. Are Stacy Wickline's personal representatives insureds of any less status than Carter? No, not if the statutory definition be respected. But it may be argued that stacking is only just in Carter's case because he paid the multiple premiums and this entitles him to the multiple coverages. Stacy Wickline paid no premiums. The point loses force when it is remembered that no third party beneficiaries give the consideration that yields an obligation he may of right enforce. Here Mills Carter, Jr., paid the premiums for the benefit of all insureds, including the statutory UM third party beneficiary Stacy Wickline. The advantage to U.S.F. & G. from denying stacking here would be economically identical to that condemned in so many other contexts. In the end this Court reverses and renders as to this issue on the direct appeal, and does so because 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. This Court can not on principle distinguish today's case from Brown, Pearthree and Bridges, which we regard as settling the law in this area.