Court Opinion

ID: 9561915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:18:33.480082+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:50.725125
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
All statutory references are to Utah Code Ann., 1953, as amended, unless otherwise stated.
Chapter 41, Title 31, passed by the Utah Legislature in 1973, is known as the “Utah Automobile No-Fault Insurance Act.” It provides on a no-fault basis for payment through insurance or other security of certain benefits to all persons suffering personal injury arising out of automobile accidents “preserving, however, the right of an injured person to pursue the customary tort claims where the most serious types of injury occur.” Sec. 31 — 41-2.
This latter statute makes no exception for guests. On the contrary, it includes them. Therefore, Utah’s Guest Statute, Sec. 41-9-1 is, I believe, impliedly repealed by the no-fault legislation.
But, even, arguendo, if implied repeal of the guest statute has not occurred by enactment of Chapter 41, Title 31, a residuum of constitutionally impermissible discrimination remains against those automobile guests who receive “the most serious types of injury.”1 I believe this unreasonable classification within a class, i. e. the class of guests, is repugnant to Art. I, Sec. 2, Constitution of Utah. Also, it appears to me that singular irony obtains when a legal system permits less injured guests to recover though there is no negligence while the seriously injured guest cannot recover when there is negligence.

. See Justice Batjer’s concurring opinion in Laakonen v. Eighth Judicial District Court, Nev., 538 P.2d 574, 579-80 (1975) and cases cited therein.