Court Opinion

ID: 9665013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:36:19.267613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:12.130777
License: Public Domain

ROBERT H. SCHUMACHER,
Judge (concurring specially).
I concur with the majority’s decision. The facts of this case lead to the inference that, at the time of the accident, the decedent was not using his automobile for “transportation purposes” as that phrase has come to be defined by Minnesota courts. But I feel compelled to point out the incongruence of this decision with the primary purpose of Minnesota’s No-Fault Automobile Insurance Act. The supreme court aptly defined the purpose of no-fault insurance as follows:
Insurance for economic loss benefits is purchased to protect the insured against risk of injury arising from the maintenance or use of a motor vehicle regardless of whether the tortfeasor was negligent or acted intentionally, or even if there were no tortfeasor. It is enough if the victim accidentally injures herself. In other words, the focus is not on the tortfeasor; rather, no-fault benefit eligibility is dependent exclusively on the injured victim and whether she has been hurt under circumstances arising from the use of a motor vehicle. This is true first party coverage.
McIntosh v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 488 N.W.2d 476, 480 (Minn.1992).
Here, it is undisputed that the decedent died as a result of an accident caused directly by his use of a motor vehicle. And the decedent had no-fault insurance. No-fault insurance exists to cover just such a case. Where it is undisputed that an accident has occurred as a result of the operation of a motor vehicle, it should follow that an insured with no-fault insurance should be compensated for the damage caused by the accident. Thus, I fear that the “transportation purposes” test now operates to exclude a class of accidents and victims that the Minnesota Legislature never intended to exclude when it passed the no-fault act.