Court Opinion

ID: 9643114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:19:57.033111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:57.620833
License: Public Domain

Robert L. Brown, Justice, concurring in part, dissenting in part. I concur with the amount of the implied coverage on the automobile involved ($25,000), but I disagree with the court’s decision on stacking. Carolyn Ross had one policy covering four automobiles. Only one of those automobiles was involved in the accident. USAA failed to offer her underinsured coverage. As a result, we must decide USAA’s liability under the operative statute, Ark. Code Ann. § 23-89-209 (Repl. 1992). Section 23-89-209 is silent on the issue of stacking. It does not deal with it one way or the other. Hence, it cannot be ambiguous on the matter, as the majority concludes. The mere fact that the statute directs that underinsured coverage be offered for each motor vehicle owned by an insured does not translate into stacked coverage when only one of the vehicles is involved in the wreck. As the majority opinion admits, one case cited by Ross, Riffle v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 410 S.E.2d 413 (W. Va. 1991), is concerned with stacking separate policies which covered one vehicle. That is an entirely different fact situation. The only authority for doing what the majority seeks to do in this case is a Minnesota case, Holman v. All Nation Ins. Co., 288 N.W.2d 244 (Minn. 1980). The policy justification for stacking coverages of several vehicles under one insurance contract involving several cars may have merit. One justification may be that minimum coverage on one vehicle is not a sufficient penalty for failure to offer under-insured coverage. The General Assembly might well want to address this. But today the majority implies a penalty by stacking coverages on vehicles not involved in the accident without a statutory premise for doing so. I cannot go that far, and for that reason I respectfully dissent.