Court Opinion

ID: 9639778
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:47:17.80468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:21.636296
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent.
I find the dissent of Justice Stephenson in Stanfield to be persuasive in this case. As he points out, the doctrine of reasonable expectations is based on the premise that policy language will be construed as the average reader would understand it. That doctrine has no application in the case at bar, where the anti-stacking policy provisions are neither ambiguous nor obscure.
There is nothing in the uninsured motorist statute that mandates the result reached by the majority. The statute, by its terms, requires the provision in every policy of uninsured motorist coverage up to $25,000 per person, or $50,000 per accident. I do not believe the General Assembly intended more than this minimum coverage for each accident involving an individual. The statute requires only that the insured be placed in the same position as he or she would have been if the uninsured motorist tortfeasor had carried the required minimum limits of coverage. That means the movants here are entitled to $25,000, the amount they recovered from Allstate. When the movants paid for three separate premiums, they were entitled to separate coverage. To give them more is to ignore the plain language of their contract.
I would enforce the policy provisions as they are written and deny stacking.
GANT, J., joins this dissenting opinion.