Court Opinion

ID: 9763756
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:55:01.959914+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:49.485576
License: Public Domain

KELLEHER, Justice,
dissenting.
I realize that there is a diversity of judicial thought regarding the extent of coverage afforded by the hit-and-run provisions of the various uninsured-motorist statutes, but the issue to be resolved by this court is just what our Legislature, the General Assembly, did intend when in the spring of 1962 it enacted P.L. 1962, ch. 161, and thereby afforded an opportunity for the purchaser of automobile liability insurance to obtain compensation for losses caused by a specific group of tortfeasors, the uninsured and the hit-and-run motorist. It is my belief that when the legislators in 1962 opted for protection against the hit-and-run driver, they never imagined that some nineteen years later a judicial body would, with a bit of semantic legerdemain, change the term “hit and run” into “miss and run.” Houdini would certainly appreciate such “sleight of eye,” but the legislators, Class of 1962, who are still possessed of an ability to recall, will, I suggest, shake their heads in disbelief upon learning that when they said “hit” in 1962, they really meant “miss.”
This court has repeatedly said that when the language of a statute is free from ambiguity and expresses a clear, sensible meaning, there is no room for statutory construction, and the court must give the words their plain and obvious meaning. “Hit and run” are words of common, everyday meaning. The word “hit” is defined in Webster’s Third International Dictionary as “1 a: a blow striking an object aimed at — contrasted with miss * * * b: an impact of one thing against another: COLLISION.”
It is interesting to note that when the Legislature approve the uninsured-motorist statute in 1962, the approval came from both branches on the sixtieth and last day of the January 1962 session. At that moment, the Boston Red Sox baseball team had just begun another one of the team’s many fruitless pursuits of the American League championship. All of the Red Sox players and just about every legislator were highly aware at that time of the year that before one can have a successful execution of the hit-and-run play in baseball, the batter must hit the ball.
A pedestrian who is struck by an unidentified motor vehicle and then has the misfortune of seeing the automobile leave the scene will tell anyone who inquires about his or her physical welfare that he or she has been involved in a hit-and-run accident.
In The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1978 ed.), the phrase “hit-and-run” is classified as an adjective which describes “the driver of a motor vehicle who drives on after striking a pedestrian or another vehicle”; or, when used in a baseball sense, describes “a play in which a man on base runs with with the pitch, and the batter attempts to hit the ball.” It is obvious that my colleagues care little for our American heritage or the publication that bears that title.
With all due deference to my associates, the General Assembly knew exactly what it was doing when it first afforded protection against the uninsured and hit-and-run motorist. If the Legislature ever intended to include protection against the “miss-and-run” motorist, it was perfectly capable of saying so, but it did not. The majority has, under the guise of a liberal construction, amended a statute that, because of its clear, precise prose, needs no such amendment.