Court Opinion

ID: 9689306
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:27:20.519613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:46.887751
License: Public Domain

SIMONETT, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent to the first part of the court’s opinion. I read the offset provision of Minn.Stat. § 65B.51, subd. 1 (1980), to require that the cause of action, not just the accident, must arise out of the operation, ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle. Here the only cause of action for which damages are recoverable is the cause of action against the township. Since this claim is not based on the township’s use of a motor vehicle, there is no setoff.
To hold otherwise, it seems to me, renders meaningless subdivision 5 of the same statute which says that nothing in the section shall limit “the damages recoverable from any person for negligent acts or omissions other than those committed in the operation, ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle.” (Emphasis added.)