Court Opinion

ID: 9639762
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:47:04.839767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:21.516245
License: Public Domain

COVINGTON, Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the majority but do so on a somewhat different analysis from that set out in the principal opinion.
At the time of this accident, Missouri’s Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Law, § 303.010 et seq., RSMo 1978, did not mandate proof of financial responsibility. Effective July 1, 1987, proof of financial responsibility is required under what is now titled the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law, § 303.010 et seq., RSMo 1986. Appellant asserts that it is the public policy of this state to facilitate compensation of victims of negligent motor vehicle operators. While this argument is persuasive, the policy currently enunciated was not the expressed public policy of this state at the time relevant to this case.
This Court in S.A. V. v. K. G. V., 708 S.W.2d 651 (Mo. banc 1986), held that the doctrine of spousal immunity is no longer a bar in negligence actions and that the holding applied to all actions in which a final order, decree, or judgment had not been entered as of the date of issuance of the opinion, April 15, 1986. The effect of S.A.V. was not diminished by Cameron Mut. Ins. Co. v. Proctor, 758 S.W.2d 67 (Mo.App.1988), and Hussman v. Gov’t Employees Ins. Co., 768 S.W.2d 585 (Mo.App.1989).1
In Proctor, the wife sustained injuries in an accident while a passenger in an automobile operated by her husband who died as a result of the accident. Wife and husband resided in different households at the time of the accident. Their automobile was titled in the names of both husband and wife and insured through Cameron Mutual under a policy issued in both names. The insurance policy contained the following provision that included a household exclusion clause:
This policy does not apply: (g)(2) to bodily injury to the insured or any member of the family of the insured residing in the same household as the insured; [Exclusion-(g)(2) ].
Id. at 69.
Cameron Mutual sought a declaration that it was not required to defend or pay *797any judgment in an action for personal injuries brought by wife against the defendant ad litem for her deceased husband. In affirming the trial court, the court of appeals concluded that the fact that the wife was a named insured under the policy precluded Cameron Mutual’s liability under the policy. The court approved Cameron Mutual’s insertion of an exclusion of liability to a named insured for her personal bodily injuries. In reaching this result, the court interpreted the first portion of the exclusion that the policy does not apply “to bodily injury to the insured....” It did not interpret the latter portion of the provision, following the disjunctive “or,” containing the traditional household exclusion. The Proctor court thus neither fully addressed nor needed to address whether abolition of the doctrine of interspousal immunity required that particular household exclusion to be nullified on public policy grounds. The court merely found “no public policy consideration which would require [Cameron Mutual] not to exclude a named insured ... from coverage for her own bodily injuries.” Id. at 70.
The court of appeals in Hussman, relying in part on Proctor, found family or household exclusions valid even after the abrogation of interspousal immunity. Hussman, 768 S.W.2d at 587. The provision at issue excluded from coverage “bodily injury to any insured.” The policy defined “insured” to include “you and your relatives.” The term “relatives” meant “a person related to you who resides in your household.” Plaintiffs, a husband and wife living in the same house, sued another driver for damages suffered in an automobile accident in which husband had been driving. The other driver counterclaimed for damages and sought apportionment of fault as to husband. Husband sued his insurance company for indemnity, claiming the family exclusion clause in his policy void as against public policy.
The opinion in Hussman does not make clear whether the wife was a named insured, as was the case in Proctor. Proctor was decided on grounds independent of the traditional family or household exclusion; that is, it determined the wife seeking indemnity was herself a named insured. If the wife in Hussman were not a named insured on the policy, then Proctor offers no support for the result reached in Huss-man. If the wife were a named insured, then Proctor is controlling and the Huss-man court’s language with respect to the validity of family exclusion clauses is merely surplusage.2
Appellant argues that when the adoption of contribution is combined with the abrogation of spousal immunity, a new class of defendants, negligent spouses, is created. Although the 1978 adoption of contribution preceded the Ward’s accident in 1985, that adoption, standing alone, does not affect this decision.
In sum, the cumulative effect of the Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Law, the adoption of contribution, and the abrogation of interspousal immunity may very well signal that the public policy of this state now favors indemnification of Larry Ward; that would be current public policy, and the Court need not decide that question today. The facts remain: the insurance liability policy purchased by Larry Ward became effective December 1, 1984; motor vehicle owners were not required to maintain financial responsibility, usually motor vehicle liability policies, until July 1, 1987, § 303.025, RSMo 1986; and spousal immunity was not abolished until April 15, 1986, Townsend v. Townsend, 708 S.W.2d 646 (Mo. banc 1986), and S.A. V., 708 S.W.2d 646. Whatever the public policy now espoused by the State of Missouri, this Court should not by judicial fiat retroactively impose that policy on this antecedent insurance contract.

. My discussion of the effect of the Proctor and Hussman cases is adopted in major part from the language of the analysis of those cases by the Honorable Jean C. Hamilton, Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, from the Eastern District’s opinion in this matter.

. Hussman also cites Foster v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 750 S.W.2d 494, 496 (Mo.App.1988), decided after the abolition of spousal immunity, as following "long-established Missouri law that a 'family exclusion clause’ is valid.” Hussman, 768 S.W.2d at 587. The Foster opinion, however, never addressed the issue of the validity of family exclusion clauses; it merely determined whether appellant and her husband were members of the same household.