Court Opinion

ID: 9532272
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:19:45.34748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:43.272297
License: Public Domain

OTIS, Justice
(dissenting).
Following en banc reargument I am persuaded the trial court should be affirmed in this appeal.
The plaintiff Wilbur Gudvangen has brought this action against the defendant Austin Mutual, the insurer of plaintiff and his family, to recover uninsured motorist benefits under a policy which covers plaintiff’s two automobiles, neither of which was involved in this accident. Gail Gudvangen, plaintiff’s daughter, was injured on August 17, 1975, while riding as a passenger on an uninsured motorcycle which collided with an uninsured automobile and another uninsured motorcycle.
*818The policy issued by Austin to plaintiff, as conceded by the majority, excludes coverage for accidents caused by uninsured motorcycles. The narrow question then is whether Chapter 408 of the Laws of 1974 mandates coverage where injuries are inflicted by an uninsured motorcycle prior to the adoption on May 25, 1977, of Chapter 266, Laws of 1977.
At the time of this accident the applicable statutes were set forth in Chapter 408 of the Laws of 1974, codified as Minn.St. 65B.43, subds. 1 and 2, and Minn.St. 65B.49, subd. 4, (1), (2) and (3) which provide as follows:
§ 65B.43 “Subdivision 1. The following words and phrases, shall, for the purpose of Laws 1974, Chapter 408, have the meanings ascribed to them, except where the context clearly indicates a different meaning.
“Subd. 2. ‘Motor vehicle’ means every vehicle, other than a motorcycle or other vehicle with fewer than four wheels, which (a) is required to be registered pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Chapter 168, (b) is designed to be self-propelled by an engine or motor for use primarily upon public roads, highways or streets in the transportation of persons or property, or (c) is a trailer, when connected to or being towed by a motor vehicle.” (Italics supplied.)
§ 65B.49 “Subd. 4. Uninsured or hit- and-run motor vehicle coverage. (1) On and after January 1, 1975, no plan of reparation security may be renewed, delivered or issued for delivery, or executed in this state with respect to any motor vehicle registered or principally garaged in this state unless coverage is provided therein or supplemental thereto, in the amounts of $25,000 because of injury to or the death of one person in any accident, and subject to the said limit for one person, $50,000 because of bodily injury to or the death of two or more persons in any one accident, for the protection of persons insured thereunder who are legally entitled to recover damages from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles and hit-and-run motor vehicles because of injury.
“(2) Every owner of a motor vehicle registered or principally garaged in this state shall maintain uninsured motor vehicle coverage as provided in this subdivision.
“(3) ‘Uninsured motor vehicle’ means any motor vehicle for which a plan of reparation security meeting the requirements of Laws 1974, Chapter 408 is not in effect.”
These statutes included in one chapter the provisions for so-called “no-fault” coverage and “uninsured motor vehicle” coverage, incorporating by reference as an uninsured motor vehicle the no-fault definition which explicitly excluded motorcycles. Accordingly by the terms of the statute, on the date of this accident, liability insurance policies were not required to include uninsured motorist coverage where the injury was inflicted by the operation of a motorcycle.
For reasons which do not appear in the record and are not apparent otherwise, a subsequent legislature in 1977 adopted Chapter 266 changing Minn.St. 65B.49, subd. 4, (3), to add the words “or motorcycle” so as to read as follows:
“ ‘Uninsured motor vehicle’ means any motor vehicle or motorcycle for which a plan of reparation security meeting the requirements of sections 65B.41 to 65B.71 is not in effect.”
The preamble to that chapter described it as “An Act relating to automobile insurance; clarifying certain ambiguous provisions in the Minnesota no-fault automobile insurance act.” I submit that whatever may have been the intention of the 1974 legislature the explicit language of Chapter 408 could not have been clearer or less ambiguous. I have the greatest difficulty in accepting the principle that where a specifically defined vehicle is expressly excluded in one law, a subsequent law merely clarifies the intent of a prior legislature by explicitly including vehicles it previously excluded.
In any case, unless we are to overrule a long line of cases which have approved a *819fundamental rule of construction for the last 100 years, the 1977 legislature had no authority to construe the intent of the 1974 legislature. In Bingham v. Supervisors of Winona Co., 8 Minn. 390, 398, (441, 448) (1878) we said:
“ * * * It is only the intent of the legislature which enacts a statute that is to govern courts in the construction thereof. The opinion of a subsequent legislature upon the meaning of a statute, is entitled to no more weight than that of the same men in a private capacity.”
Subsequently we approved the rule stated in the Bingham case in Anderson v. Firle, 174 Minn. 333, 337, 219 N.W. 284, 285 (1928) where we stated: “We recognize the rule that one legislature is not the interpreter of the laws enacted by a prior legislature.”
More recently in Martinco v. Hastings, 265 Minn. 490, 497, 122 N.W.2d 631, 638 (1963) we noted: “If there is to be a change in the statute, it must come from the legislature, for the courts cannot supply that which the legislature purposely omits or inadvertently overlooks.”
Whether the failure to require uninsured motorist coverage for injuries inflicted by a motorcycle was intentional or inadvertent, the liability carriers had a right to rely on the express language of the statute as long as it remained unamended. To that extent justice and equity clearly conferred on liability carriers a “vested interest” in limiting their exposure to only those risks which were expressly covered in their policies or were mandated by statute. There can be no dispute but that neither the law nor the policy provided coverage for accidents caused by motorcycles on the date of the accident giving rise to this litigation.
The majority opinion on rehearing refers to the rule that protection under the uninsured motorist statute applies to “persons” and not “vehicles.” With deference to the majority, I submit that the broad language of that rule has no bearing whatever on the facts of this case. The cases which have adopted and applied that rule have held only that persons who are insured under an automobile liability policy need not be occupants of the car described in the policy to enjoy uninsured motorist coverage. All we have held in this regard is that the named insured and members of his household are entitled to uninsured motorist benefits whether, they are injured while riding in the vehicle described in the insured’s policy or whether they are pedestrians or riding in any other vehicle, either an automobile or a motorcycle. None of these cases requires uninsured motorist coverage where the vehicle which causes the injury is expressly excluded by the policy and is a vehicle as to which coverage is not mandated by statute.
Four cases are cited for the proposition that “uninsured motorist protection is not coverage for vehicles but for persons”: Northland Insurance Co. v. West, 294 Minn. 368, 201 N.W.2d 133 (1972); Taulelle v. Allstate Insurance Co., 296 Minn. 247, 207 N.W.2d 736 (1973); Nygaard v. State Farm Mutual Auto. Ins. Co., 301 Minn. 10, 221 N.W.2d 151 (1974); and Oberstar v. State Farm Mutual Auto. Ins. Co., 301 Minn. 406, 222 N.W.2d 557 (1974).
In Northland the injured party was struck by an uninsured automobile while riding on a motorcycle. Although the motorcycle was not the vehicle named in the injured party’s insurance policy covering a different vehicle, we held that the insurance on the injured party’s automobile gave him uninsured motorist coverage when struck by an uninsured car whether he was riding in his insured vehicle or in any other vehicle.
The Taulelle case simply held that by the express terms of his policy the insured who was injured while riding a motorcycle was riding an insured automobile. We relied heavily on the fact that motorcycles were not explicitly excluded from coverage. In contrast to the facts in Taulelle, it is conceded that the policy issued to plaintiff excludes coverage unless it is mandated by statute.
In Nygaard we dealt with two wholly unrelated accidents governed by the same rule of law. There we held that where the injured parties were on motorcycles struck by an uninsured automobile, policies of in*820surance under which the injured parties were otherwise covered could not exclude uninsured motorist benefits simply because the injured parties were occupying motorcycles which were not covered by the insured’s policy. Again the question for decision was not whether the insuror could exclude injuries inflicted by an uninsured motorcycle, but only whether injuries inflicted by an uninsured automobile could be excluded because the injured parties were not riding in the automobile which the policy expressly covered.
Finally, in Oberstar, we held that by the express definitions in the policy itself, colliding snowmobiles were automobiles for purposes of affording uninsured motorist coverage to persons included within automobile liability policies as long as the snowmobiles were being operated on a public road.
The language in our cases to the effect that uninsured motorist coverage is protection for persons and not for vehicles means only one thing, that to enjoy the benefits of uninsured motorist coverage it is not necessary that injured parties be riding or occupying the vehicles which are described in their liability policies. The rule is narrowly applied in all of these cases to provide protection wherever an insured is injured by an uninsured vehicle as that vehicle is defined either by statute or in a particular policy. But to hold that this principle gives coverage where neither the policy nor the law requires it is, in my opinion, a totally unwarranted deprivation of rights for which defendant has contracted. It denies defendant a valid defense which was vested at the time of this accident. See, Halverson v. Rolvaag, 274 Minn. 273, 275, 143 N.W.2d 239, 241 (1966). Accordingly I would affirm the trial court.