Opinion ID: 1192591
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Court of Appeals' Disposition

Text: The Court of Appeals affirmed, correctly treating the nisi prius ruling as one for summary judgment. [10] The appellate court reasoned that (1) while the insurer's liability for UM coverage is contractual, the parents' statute-based quest for any element of wrongful-death damages is comprised within the single death claim that must be brought by an authorized party plaintiff  i.e. by the decedent's widow in this case; (2) the widow's claim is derivative of that which the decedent could have brought had he survived the accident; [11] and (3) because wrongful death is not actionable absent a statute, the parents' quest for the damages they seek (whether directly from a tortfeasor or indirectly via the UM coverage) must accord with the legislative wrongful-death recovery regime. Although we reach today the same conclusion as the Court of Appeals, we nonetheless afford certiorari review in order to provide an in-depth analysis of the parents' UM-coverage claim within the confining framework of a statutory wrongful-death action.