Court Opinion

ID: 9679064
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:39:41.398092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:09.955602
License: Public Domain

SUE WALKER, Justice,
dissenting and concurring opinion.
I respectfully dissent. I would sustain Appellant Kimberly Verhoev’s first, second, fifth, and sixth issues. In these issues, Kimberly challenges the trial court’s declaratory judgment and summary judgment for Appellee Progressive County Mutual Insurance Company limiting Appel-lee’s liability under a personal automobile policy it issued to her and to Glenn Ver-hoev as divorced individuals not residing together. Kimberly claims that because the policy provides liability insurance coverage with limits of $250,007 per person, the trial court erred by limiting Appellee’s obligation to indemnify Glenn for her bodily injuries to $20,000. Appellee claims that exclusion C, quoted in the majority opinion, applies to limit liability coverage to $20,000.
The majority properly analyzes Kimberly’s third and seventh issues, reversing the trial court’s failure to grant summary judgment for Kimberly on her claim for uninsured/underinsured (UM/UIM) motorist coverage benefits under the policy. Concerning the UM/UIM provision, the majority concludes that because both Appellant’s and Appellee’s interpretations of the UM/UIM provision are reasonable, the provision is ambiguous; the majority holds that this ambiguity is to be resolved in favor of coverage and that the common law “doctrine of severability” applies.1 Maj. Op. at 816-17.
While applying a proper and persuasive analysis of the UM/UIM provisions of the policy, the majority inexplicably fails to apply this same analysis to exclusion C in the liability portion of the policy. The majority recognizes that, applying “common grammar rules,” an ambiguity exists in exclusion C. Maj. Op. at 810. The majority recognizes that the common law “doctrine of severability” applies to exclusion C. Maj. Op. at 811. But then the majority, in contradiction to the principles of law it has just set forth, fails to resolve the ambiguity in favor of coverage, fails to apply the “doctrine of severability,” and summarily concludes that the second “you” in exclusion C must refer to Kimberly because she is the person who suffered bodily injury. Maj. Op. at 811 (summarily holding, “The second ‘you’ clearly refers to Kimberly as named insured because she is the one asserting a claim for bodily injury. Glenn is not making a claim for bodily injury, but Kimberly is.”). The majority misses the point. Applying the analysis *818dictated by the law and, in fact, the same analysis relied upon by the majority in addressing the UM/UIM provisions of the policy, because Glenn is not making a claim for bodily injury, exclusion C does not apply. And because Kimberly is not seeking liability coverage as an insured, exclusion C does not apply. Accordingly, I would reverse the trial court’s declaratory judgment and summary judgment for Ap-pellee limiting Appellee’s obligation under Glenn’s liability coverage to $20,000 and render judgment that the limit of Appel-lee’s obligation under Glenn’s liability coverage is up to $250,007.
I concur with the majority’s reversal of the trial court’s summary judgment denying Kimberly underinsured motorist coverage and with the majority’s rendition of judgment in favor of Kimberly on her claim for underinsured motorist benefits up to the policy limit per person of $250,007.

. In the interest of brevity, I omit the citations to the legal authorities relied upon by the majority opinion. The majority opinion cites the applicable and controlling law; it simply misapplies that law to exclusion C.