Court Opinion

ID: 9710855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:19:04.091775+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:00.398618
License: Public Domain

Wilkins, J.
(dissenting, with whom Abrams and Greaney, JJ., join) The court’s opinion unnecessarily provides a windfall to Ulwick and unfairly burdens the motor vehicle insurance buying public with losses that should not be imposed on them.
The windfall is apparent. The city, which has paid Ulwick’s medical expenses and lost compensation in amounts exceeding $100,000, in each instance, has transferred its rights against the Fund to Ulwick. Ulwick, fully reimbursed to date and assured of the payment of his future medical expenses and future lost compensation, now may also assert a right to recover lost wages and medical expenses against the driver and owner of the vehicle covered by American Mutual. There is no logical reason why Ulwick should be compensated twice for these losses. The fact that the city of Mel-rose gave up any subrogation claim that it had against the Fund when it transferred its rights to Ulwick suggests that the city believed that it had no significant claim of subrogation against the Fund or American Mutual’s insureds. The city was correct in that judgment.
*492The city was an insurer within the intent of the Legislature. Our opinion in Ferrari v. Toto, 383 Mass. 36 (1981), adopting the reasoning of Ferrari v. Toto, 9 Mass. App. Ct. 483, 486 (1980), does not answer that question, but it points us in the right direction. It rejected the use of the definition of “insurer” in G. L. c. 175D, § 1 (5), in resolving a similar issue. It also considered the larger purpose of denying recovery against the Fund to persons or entities who normally would be entitled to subrogation against the wrongdoer’s insurer. The statute reverses the result regularly obtained by the collateral source rule. It does so to assure that, when a person has an insurance source to cover damages, the motor vehicle insurance buying public is not hit with the loss. The Fund (and the public) should be a last resort source of protection, as the Legislature intended.
That view of the purpose of a broad remedial statute such as G. L. c. 175D is wholly consistent with our treatment of other such wide-reaching legislation. In a number of instances involving a statute of broad scope, we have “rejected the concept that limiting statutory words, literally read, were fully expressive of the applicable law.” Intriligator v. Boston, 395 Mass. 489, 491 (1985). See Mailhot v. Travelers Ins. Co., 375 Mass. 342, 348 (1978). Justice Kaplan, in his Mail-hot opinion, explained well why one should consider a section of such a statute in its relation to the legislation as a whole: “In so large a legislative enterprise, there are likely to be casual overstatements and understatements, half-answers, and gaps in the statutory provisions. As practice develops and the difficulties are revealed, the courts are called on to interweave the statute with decisions answering the difficulties and composing, as far as feasible and reasonable, an harmonious structure faithful to the basic designs and purposes of the Legislature.” Id. at 345. The court has failed to adhere to this wise understanding of its appropriate function.
My view that Melrose was an insurer within the legislative purpose results from the following further analysis. If a municipality were a workers’ compensation self-insurer for its non-police and non-fire department personnel, we would treat *493the municipality as an insurer within the meaning of the words in § 1 (5). The municipality assumes the role of an insurer, and the Fund’s liability should not vary depending on a municipality’s election between purchasing insurance and self-insuring. In each such instance, the cost of the protection afforded its employees should fall on the municipality.
The question then is whether the statutory protection that a municipality must afford to a police officer against lost wages and the cost of medical care also puts the municipality into the category of an insurer for the purposes of G. L. c. 175D, § 1 (5). In every practical sense, the municipality is an insurer against a police officer’s loss of wages and the cost of medical expenses in those circumstances where the respective reimbursement statutes apply. See G. L. c. 41, §§ 100, 11 IF. A municipality may, of course, protect itself by purchasing insurance against such losses. See Jones v. Wayland, 374 Mass. 249, 261-262 (1978). We have ruled that G. L. c. 41, § 11 IF, is a law similar to workers’ compensation. Wincek v. West Springfield, 399 Mass. 700, 703-704 (1987). An insurer under the workers’ compensation act includes a self-insurer and a municipality acting as a self-insurer. G. L. c. 152, § 1 (7) (1992 ed.). Again, the result should not turn on whether the city bought insurance. There is no reason in logic to make a distinction in the Fund’s obligation depending on whether the injured municipal employee worked as a police officer or firefighter or in some other municipal position, or whether the municipal employer purchased insurance against such losses or not.