Court Opinion

ID: 9520855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:51:54.699463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:04.747264
License: Public Domain

MAY, Judge,
concurring.
I agree Gillespie sufficiently "identified," for purposes of coverage under the Uninsured Motorist provisions of the GEICO policy, the driver of the vehicle that caused him to collide with the median wall. I write separately, however, to address the anomaly of the "identification" requirement in this policy in light of the policy's lack of clarity regarding uninsured motorist coverage for "hit-and-run" and "miss- and-run" accidents, where the uninsured motorist will typically be unidentifiable.
As the majority notes, the index to the policy refers to Section IV, Uninsured Motorists Coverage, stating "Your Protection For Injuries Caused by Uninsured And Hit And Run Motorists." (App. at 22-23.) But in Section IV there is no mention of "hit-and-run"; it is not defined, nor is it enumerated as an exclusion to uninsured motorist coverage. This suggests Section IV provides some type of "hit-and-run" coverage yet at the same time it appears to require as a condition of coverage that the "hit-and-run" motorist be "identified." This would appear to render the coverage illusory in many common situations.
"Hit-and-run" drivers are by their nature usually "unidentified" and unidentifiable. See David J. Marchitelli, Annotation, Uninsured Motorist Indorsement: Construction and Application of Requirement that There Be "Physical Contact" with Unidentified or Hit-and-Run Vehicle; "Miss-and-Run" Cases, 77 A.L.R.5th 319 § 2(a) (2000)(noting the concept of "uninsured motorist has been expanded to include 'hit-and-run' vehicles whose opera*920tors, after causing an accident resulting in injury to occupants of an insured vehicle, leave the scene of the accident without becoming identified.") (Emphasis supplied.)
The same is true of operators of "miss- and-run" vehicles like that in the case before us:
Much litigation has been devoted to resolving issues arising out of accidents that resulted in injuries to insured persons without any physical contact between an insured person or vehicle, and the unidentified vehicle which was alleged to have caused the accident. Typically, such "miss-and-run," or "phantom" vehicle, cases have arisen when an improperly operated unidentified vehicle forced or otherwise caused the operator of an insured vehicle to take evasive action in order to avoid a collision with an unidentified vehicle, another vehicle, or some object, resulting in a collision with another vehicle or object, or where the unidentified vehicle causes an operator of another vehicle to take an evasive action that in turn caused the other vehicle to strike the insured vehicle.
Id. (footnotes omitted, emphases supplied).
I would not interpret the GEICO policy's unexplained reference to "Your Protection For Injuries Caused by Uninsured And Hit And Run Motorists" to provide coverage for unidentified "hit-and-run" drivers, as is typical in uninsured motorist provisions, but at the same time to require, as the policy seems to, that a "miss-and-run" driver be identified in order for her auto to be considered "uninsured." See, e.g., Streitweiser v. Middlesex Mutual Assurance Co., 219 Conn. 371, 593 A.2d 498, 502 (1991):
with respect to uninsured motorist coverage in general, we can discern no viable distinction between identified and unidentified uninsured tortfeasors. From the point of view of the injured claimant ... it does not matter whether the tortfeasor is a known person who is uninsured or underinsured or an unidentified motorist whose insurance coverage, if any, is functionally unavailable.
Nor would I differentiate between the "hit-and-run" coverage the policy suggests it provides and "miss-and-run" coverage under the uninsured motorist provisions based on the physical contact that is necessarily present in a hit-and-run accident and absent in a miss-and-run accident. That distinction would lead to the bizarre result that uninsured motorist coverage would be available for the less vigilant driver who does not avoid a collision but would be denied to the more adroit driver who manages to avoid the greater hazard.6 Id.
The GEICO policy purports to offer "Protection For Injuries Caused by ... Hit And Run Motorists" but at the same time appears to include as a condition of uninsured motorist coverage an identification requirement that is inconsistent with such "protection" of the policyholder. I therefore question whether the GEICO policy could properly deny uninsured motorist coverage for Gillespie even had the "miss-and-run" driver not been sufficiently identified.
ORDER
The Appellant, by counsel, has filed a Motion for Publication of Memorandum Decision. Appellant requests an order from the Court to publish its opinion hand*921ed down on April 19, 2006, because it "establishes, modifies, or clarifies a rule of law." See Ind. Appellate Rule 65(A)(1).
Having reviewed the matter, the Court FINDS AND ORDERS AS FOLLOWS: 1. The Appellant's Motion for Publication of Memorandum Decision is GRANTED, and this Court's April 19, 2006 opinion is now ordered published.
All Panel Judges Concur.

. The Streitweiser court found imposing liability on the insurer was particularly appropriate because the parties, as did Gillespie and GEICO in the case before us, had stipulated to the causal relationship between the conduct of the "miss-and-run"' driver and injuries the insured party sustained. Id.