Court Opinion

ID: 9679137
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:41:56.245863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:10.586542
License: Public Domain

MINTON, Justice,
dissenting.
Relying principally upon a Webster’s dictionary definition to find a nonexistent ambiguity, the majority quietly buries decades of precedent that held that hit and run vehicles are covered under UM policies only if the policy itself clearly says so. Because I believe that the decision we reach today will upset the settled state of our UM jurisprudence, as well as the settled expectations of both insurers and insureds, I respectfully dissent.
Under our clear precedent, the UM statute does not mandate coverage for hit and *879run vehicles.1 Rather, UM coverage for hit and run vehicles is a matter of discretion reserved for the individual insurers.2 An insurer may choose expressly to include UM coverage for hit and run vehicles. But the choice is strictly voluntary.
In the case before us, it is uncontested that unlike most automobile insurance policies,3 Dowell’s Safe Auto policy did not expressly provide UM coverage for hit and run vehicles. And it is inarguable that as plaintiffs, Dowell and Hasting had the burden of proving each element of their claim, including the requirement that Dowell’s UM policy covered the hit and run vehicle.4 But despite their inability to show whether the hit and run vehicle was insured, and despite the fact that the UM provision of Safe Auto’s policy did not include hit and run vehicles in its UM coverage, the majority concludes that Do-well and Hasting met their burden of proving that Dowell’s UM policy unambiguously affords coverage for hit and run vehicles.
The majority reasons backwards: because Dowell’s UM policy does not specifically list hit and run vehicles among the exclusions from coverage, then coverage for hit and run vehicles must be included. Although the majority does not expressly state that it is doing so, its holding reverses decades of precedent that hit and run vehicles are only covered under UM policies if the policy expressly includes, not excludes, such coverage.5 Simply put, the majority’s startling assertion that “since the tortfeasor cannot be located, his actual insurance status is not controlling!,] ... [and,] [a]s a matter of law, since the hit and run driver cannot be located, no insurance policy ‘applied’ at the time of *880this accident”6 cannot be reconciled with Kentucky precedent.7 Indeed, it is telling that the majority does not cite any authority to support its conclusion that hit and run coverage is mandated simply because a hit and run vehicle is not specifically listed in the exclusions section of a policy. After all, Safe Auto had no reason to list hit and run vehicles as specific exclusions because, as previously mentioned, our precedent clearly held that hit and run vehicles fell within a policy’s UM coverage only if the policy specifically provided that it covered hit and run vehicles.
I also believe the majority errs when it concludes that Safe Auto’s use of the word “applies” in the definition of uninsured motor vehicle is so far outside the terms of KRS 304.20-020 as to require an analysis using a Webster’s collegiate dictionary. On the contrary, KRS 304.20-020 itself twice refers to an “applicable” insurance policy in its definition of “uninsured motor vehicle.”8 So, rather than injecting an ambiguous, extra-statutory concept into its insurance policies, Safe Auto’s use of the phrase “to which no bodily injury liability bond or policy applies at the time of the accident” (emphasis added) in Dowell’s policy actually tracks the language of KRS 304.20-020(2).
It is unquestioned that Safe Auto intended to provide the least coverage allowed by law, an important fact largely overlooked by the majority. Marketing minimum automobile liability insurance coverage for the cheapest premium is Safe Auto’s pitch, as proclaimed in its ubiquitous television commercials, as well as their website.9 This approach has consumer appeal. And the majority cites to nothing suggesting that either Dowell or Safe Auto intended that the premium Dowell paid would provide more insurance than the minimum needed to operate an automobile legally in Kentucky.
Safe Auto’s position is supported by the specific holding in Allen v. Safe Auto Ins. Co.,10 a recent opinion from the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky interpreting an insurance policy identical to the one purchased by Dowell. In Allen, the court expressly re*881jected the conclusion reached by the majority in the case at hand, instead holding that the policy unambiguously denied UM coverage for “hit and run” vehicles because Safe Auto’s clear intent was to provide only minimum coverage.11
Finally, I believe the majority has usurped the role of the General Assembly by announcing today that the public policy of Kentucky mandates that all hit and run drivers fall within a policy’s UM coverage, unless that policy’s exclusions clause explicitly mentions them. Under the majority’s interpretation, coverage for hit and run vehicles is now to be presumed, contrary to our precedent in which non-coverage was presumed. As noted in Burton, the UM statute has been virtually unchanged for decades,12 as has our interpretation of it — until today. So I would infer from longstanding precedent that the General Assembly did not desire to make hit and run vehicles presumptively covered by UM policies.13 And I believe the majority errs when it wades headlong into this issue of public policy that is best left to the General Assembly.14
Because the majority’s conclusion represents a total reversal of our previous holding that hit and run vehicles are included within a policy’s UM coverage only if the policy’s terms unambiguously so provide, and because the majority’s construction of Dowell’s UM policy grafts unintended and unnegotiated-for coverage onto a policy that was designed to provide only the bare minimum coverage required by the law (and nothing more), and because the majority’s conclusion thwarts the settled intent and expectations of insurers and insureds throughout the Commonwealth, I respectfully dissent.

. See, e.g., Burton v. Farm Bureau Ins. Co., 116 S.W.3d 475, 479 (Ky.2003) (“[un]insured motorists coverage is a public policy mandated by statute. KRS 304.20-020 has remained virtually unchanged since 1966. It requires coverage for accidents caused by uninsured vehicles, but not by unidentified vehicles whose insurance status is unknown. The inclusion of ‘hit and run’ vehicles within the UM coverage of a particular insurance policy is a voluntary contractual extension of the statutory definition of an ‘uninsured motor vehicle’ that can be ‘subject to the terms and conditions of such coverage’ per KRS 304.20-020(2).”).

. Id.

. Id. at 478 ("[v]irtually every policy of automobile liability insurance includes within its definition of an ‘uninsured motor vehicle' a 'hit and run’ vehicle[.]”).

. See Motorists Mutual Ins. Co. v. Hunt, 549 S.W.2d 845, 846 (Ky.App.1977) (adopting the "majority rule ... that in an uninsured motorist case[,] the insured bears the burden of proof that the adverse driver was in fact an uninsured motorist at the time of the accident.”).

. Burton, 116 S.W.3d at 479; Jett v. Doe, 551 S.W.2d 221, 222-23 (Ky.1977) ("[a]n examination of that statute [KRS 304.20-020] reveals that although insurers are required by it to provide uninsured motorist coverage, there is no requirement that coverage against loss caused by hit and run vehicles be afforded.... The matter herein is thus a purely contractual issue between the insurer and its insured[,] which we cannot disturb. By issuing an automobile liability policy providing for uninsured motorist coverage in hit-and-run cases, even though such coverage be subject to the restriction under consideration here, the insurer is providing coverage greater than that required by KRS 304.20-020. The insurer, in affording this additional coverage, has the right to require whatever conditions precedent to such protection as it sees fit, and once such a condition is clearly expressed in the policy and agreed upon by the parties, the courts must give it full force and effect and abstain from making a new or different contract under the guise of interpretation at the instance of a disappointed party.”); Shelter Mut. Ins. Co. v. Arnold, 169 S.W.3d 855, 856 (Ky.2005).

. Majority opinion at p. 9.

. See Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U.S. 808, 848, 111 S.Ct. 2597, 115 L.Ed.2d 720 (1991) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (“[t]he real question, then, is whether today’s majority has come forward with the type of extraordinary showing that this Court has historically demanded before overruling one of its precedents. In my view, the majority clearly has not made any such showing. Indeed, the striking feature of the majority's opinion is its radical assertion that it need not even try.... The overruling of one of this Court’s precedents ought to be a matter of great moment and consequence.”).

. KRS 304.20-020(2) ("[f]or the purpose of this coverage!,] the term 'uninsured motor vehicle’ shall, subject to the terms and conditions of such coverage, be deemed to include ... an insured motor vehicle with respect to which the amounts provided, under the bodily injury liability bond or insurance policy applicable at the time of the accident with respect to any person or organization legally responsible for the use of such motor vehicle, are less than the limits described in KRS 304.39-110; and an insured motor vehicle to the extent that the amounts provided in the liability coverage applicable at the time of the accident is denied by the insurer writing the same.”) (emphasis added).

. See http://www.safeauto.com/about.htm (last visited November 22, 2006) ("[a]t Safe Auto Insurance Company, we only offer minimum coverage. Which is good news if you’re on a tight budget. Because with Safe Auto, you'll be able to meet the law's requirements for a price that won’t break your budget. It’s this philosophy that truly sets us apart ... something we call ... Minimum Coverage for Minimum Budgets!.]®”).

. 332 F.Supp.2d 1044 (W.D.Ky.2004).

. Id. at 1047 (“[i]t is clear that Safe Auto has narrowly tailored its coverage to include only the minimum requirements under KRS 304.20-020, and its definition of 'uninsured motor vehicle’ does not include motor vehicles for which insurance status cannot be determined.”).

. Burton, 116 S.W.3d at 479.

. Cf. Id. ("[f]or twenty-six years, we have consistently upheld the validity of the 'physical contact’ limitation on 'hit and run' coverage within UM endorsements. If the legislature believed that public policy required inclusion of ‘hit and run' coverage in UM endorsements or exclusion of the 'physical contact’ limitation thereon, it would have amended KRS 304.20-020 long ago to so provide.”).

.See, e.g., Commonwealth ex rel. Cowan v. Wilkinson, 828 S.W.2d 610, 614 (Ky.1992) (“[c]learly the establishment of public policy is not within the authority of the courts. Section 27 of the Kentucky Constitution provides that the powers of government be divided into three distinct units: Executive, Legislative!] and Judicial. The establishment of public policy is granted to the legislature alone. It is beyond the power of a court to vitiate an act of the legislature on the grounds that public policy promulgated therein is contrary to what the court considers to be in the public interest.”).