Court Opinion

ID: 9656033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:31:43.432276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:26.941653
License: Public Domain

*819SCOTT, Justice
(dissenting).
I must respectfully dissent to the majority’s holding that the respondent is not eligible for basic economic loss benefits through the assigned claims plan. The majority, repulsed by the misrepresentations of Carole Rose Mueller, the insured, imputes those misrepresentations to plaintiff Mickelson and reaches out for an issue not raised by either party on this appeal to deny coverage.
We are presently in the formative stage of “no-fault” interpretation. It is vital that we proceed systematically and logically during the embryonic period. When a vehicle is admittedly insured, to sow the seeds of confusion by an interpretation never contemplated by the Act fails to cement a solid foundation for the future.
I agree with the majority on the first issue, but cannot on the second. Minn.Stat. § 65B.64, subd. 3, provides in part:
A person shall not be entitled to basic economic loss benefits through the assigned claims plan with respect to injury which was sustained if at the time of such injury the injured person was the owner of a private passenger motor vehicle for which security is required under sections 65B.41 to 65B.71 and he failed to have such security in effect.
The trial court determined that Mickelson’s truck was insured at the time of the accident under Mueller’s policy with American Family. Furthermore, the trial court reasoned that Minn.Stat. § 65B.64, subd. 3, does not require that the owner be an insured under the reparation security, and refused to read such a requirement into the No-Fault Act. Thus, the trial court found that Mickelson was entitled to participate in the assigned claims plan.
The trial court’s interpretation is sound. The majority’s interpretation of Minn.Stat. § 65B.64, subd. 3, misses its mark. If an owner of a private passenger motor vehicle is an “insured,” then he would not need to be covered under the assigned claims plan. The sanction in the statute for the failure to have security in effect on an owned private passenger motor vehicle therefore would have no meaning. Such an interpretation makes no sense.
The vehicle Mickelson owned was insured. American Family acknowledges this fact. Mickelson fits the description of those persons whom the assigned claims plan was designed to cover. In a report to the 1973 session of the Minnesota Legislature, the Automobile Liability Study Commission, in describing the proposed assigned claims plan, stated:
Primarily such a plan would be used by habitual pedestrians who do not have coverage of their own and who are struck by an uninsured or out-of-state motorist.
Minnesota Automobile Liability Study Commission, Report to the 1973 Legislature, p. 20. Although the evidence is unclear as to whether he was an habitual pedestrian, Mickelson was a pedestrian when injured and he was at most an infrequent driver of the pick-up truck registered in his name. Furthermore, Mickelson does not have coverage of his own but the vehicle he owns has no-fault coverage. He was struck by an uninsured, out-of-state motorist. It is just such a person that the No-Fault Act was designed to protect.1
It is obvious that Mickelson could not be guilty of the criminal offense dictated by the Act. The criminal penalty goes hand-in-hand with the section involved in this case. As we stated in Iverson v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 295 N.W.2d 573, 574 (1980):
To achieve compliance with this compulsory insurance requirement, the Act pro*820vides that an owner who fails to obtain the required insurance on an owned vehicle is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, the owner’s driver’s license as well as motor vehicle registration shall be revoked for up to 12 months and will not be reinstated until the required insurance is obtained. § 65B.67. In addition, such an injured owner is expressly prohibited from recovering basic economic loss benefits through the assigned claims plan. § 65B.64, subd. 3.
There is nothing in our cases which can be construed to mean that an automobile owner must obtain insurance covering himself. Mickelson should therefore not be excluded and should be entitled to participate in the assigned claims plan because the automobile which he owns is covered by reparation security as required by Minn. Stat. § 65B.64, subd. 3. We should not read a clause into the Act that is not there just to satisfy a certain factual situation.
The trial judge was correct and should be affirmed.

. Think of a grandmother, who is hit as a pedestrian under circumstances similar to this case, and it is discovered that she is the registered owner of an automobile used by her granddaughter away at college. The granddaughter, whose responsibility it is to maintain the vehicle, has taken out insurance coverage in her own name. The grandmother would not be covered for her injuries under the majority opinion.