Court Opinion

ID: 9617538
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:57:26.670717+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:11.264169
License: Public Domain

Weltner, Justice,
dissenting.
1. I agree with the majority that it is essential that uninsured motorist carriers be given reasonable notice of claims of policyholders arising out of the negligence of uninsured or underinsured motorists. I agree also that no carrier should have to pay such a claim without having a full and fair opportunity to contest its validity.
2. I disagree, however, that the General Assembly is the only source of relief for a policyholder who learns only after the expiration of the appropriate period of limitation that a tortfeasor is, or may be, an uninsured motorist.
3. The rule should be that a policyholder must perfect service upon the uninsured motorist carrier as soon as reasonably possible after becoming aware, by whatever means, that there is a substantive doubt as to the existence of adequate insurance coverage of an event that might become the subject of an uninsured motorist claim.
*164Decided April 6, 1989.
Jack F. Witcher, John E. Gilchrist, for appellants.
Johnson, Beckham & Price, J. Eugene Beckham, Rogers, Magruder, Hoyt, Sumner & Brinson, J. Clinton Sumner, Jr., Sidney P. Wright, Tisinger, Tisinger, Vance & Greer, David H. Tisinger, Downey, Cleveland & Parker, Robert H. Cleveland, Dickens & Irwin, Jeffrey S. Gilbert, Murphy & Garner, Michael L. Murphy, Mundy & Gammage, E. Lamar Gammage, Jr., for appellees.
(a) Such a rule would protect all parties concerned, as issues similar to that involved in this case (i.e., that of agency) arise early in litigation, and would provide adequate notice to the carrier well in advance of any money judgment against one later determined to be “uninsured.”
(b) Such a rule would obviate what is now judicially recognized as the responsibility of all plaintiffs to serve their uninsured motorist carriers in every action arising out of every motor vehicle incident. It would avoid, as well, the necessity that carriers review and monitor thousands of lawsuits in which there will never be any question of uninsured motorist coverage.
(c) Such a rule would .continue to place the risk of injury by an uninsured motorist exactly where the policyholder (by the payment of a premium) and the carrier (by the issuance of a policy of insurance) have contracted for it to be — that is, on the carrier.
I am authorized to state that Justice Smith joins in this dissent.