Court Opinion

ID: 9777439
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:11:09.726255+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:54.087090
License: Public Domain

HENRY, Justice
(concurring).
My brother Harbison has reached the correct conclusion and I concur in his opinion.
However, I concur with extreme reluctance.
The purpose of the Uninsured Motorist Law is to provide recompense to innocent persons who receive bodily injury or property damage through an uninsured motorist who is financially unable to respond in damages. Schoffner v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., 494 S.W.2d 756 (Tenn.1956).
To permit the insurer to charge and collect a premium on a policy provision designed to afford uninsured motorist coverage and then to deny such coverage to a person injured by an uninsured motorist who damages and disappears perverts that purpose and frustrates justice.
Our statute provides coverage in the case of the “hit-and-run” driver, but denies it in the case of the “hit-and-hide” driver.
This deficiency in our uninsured motorist statutes addresses itself to the General Assembly. It is to be hoped that it will see fit to end this patent injustice.
The situation of the insured motorist who eludes service of process is equally worthy of legislative consideration.