Court Opinion

ID: 9646676
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:07:25.074443+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:40.585993
License: Public Domain

HOLSTEIN, Judge.
I concur in the principal opinion. However, I believe the case now before us is factually distinguishable from Girard and Billings. Those cases did not involve a situation where the insured was physically or mentally incapacitated following the accident. In this case, the insured was unconscious for 11 days and hospitalized for a period of 25 days following the accident. She sustained severe head injuries caused *424by a sudden and violent blow, resulting in a period of amnesia. Some delay in notifying law enforcement officers and the insurance company is understandable and excusable. The public policy interests which are served by enforcing the notice provisions of the policy are outweighed by a countervailing public policy interest in protecting insureds who are physically or mentally incapable of communicating such notice to their insurer. See Schoen v. American Nat’l. Ins., 352 Mo. 935, 180 S.W.2d 57, 59 (banc 1944).
The evidence indicates that at about the time of her discharge from the hospital, appellant had regained her memory of the events just prior to the accident and her ability to communicate. Appellant’s failure to give notice to the insurer within 30 days after her discharge from the hospital remains unexplained and, consequently, is unexcused.
I also disagree with the use of the term “phantom vehicle” in cases such as this. The trial court entered summary judgment not because it found that there was no vehicle involved, but because of the appellant’s failure to comply with the notice provisions. On appeal from a summary judgment, we view the record in a light most favorable to the appellant. Zafft v. Eli Lilly & Co., 676 S.W.2d 241, 244 (Mo. banc 1984). Viewing the record in that light, appellant was not struck by a phantom vehicle but by a real vehicle. The harsh reality of the vehicle is supported by appellant’s recollection of seeing a vehicle with boards extending from it on a collision course with her just before the accident and the testimony of two physicians that the nature and extent of appellant’s injuries to her head were not likely caused by a fall from a bicycle, but were consistent with a high speed collision with a vehicle.
Subject to the reservations noted, I concur.