Court Opinion

ID: 9597965
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:04:12.792256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:40.063454
License: Public Domain

ALMA WILSON, Justice,
dissenting:
The question whether Craig is a “Class One” as opposed to a “Class Two” insured is not before this Court. The majority errs by inferentially deciding this issue. See, paragraph four of Part I of the majority opinion. The federal court has already determined as a matter of fact that Craig is an insured under both “Class One” and “Class Two” of the policy. The Order of Certification of Question, at page two, states specifically:
“... It was a single policy that provided coverage for 268 vehicles and Multi-Me-dia was charged a premium for each vehicle. Defendant Craig is an “insured” under both subsections 1 and 2 of the uninsured motorist insurance endorsement attached to the policy, which defines as insured:
1. You (referring to the named insured) or any family member.
2. Anyone else occupying a covered auto or a temporary substitute for a covered auto.”

[.Emphasis added.]

I am of the opinion that the federal court’s conclusion as to Craig’s classification is correct and I disagree with the majority opinion’s conclusion that determination of the federal court’s certified question is simply a mátter of stare decisis. The federal court acknowledged the absence of a definitive case, in point, with the facts of the present controversy by so stating and by tendering the question to us. Babcock v. Adkins, 695 P.2d 1340 (Okla.1984); Rogers v. Goad, 739 P.2d 519 (Okla.1987); and Stanton v. Mutual Liability Insurance Co., 747 P.2d 945 (Okla.1987), the cases cited in the majority opinion as dispositve by reason of stare decisis, did not involve an employee/agent insured during the scope and course of employment for a corporate named insured. Moreover, citations within our previous cases, supra, do not represent precedential “commitments” beyond their application to the *218facts which were before this Court at the time those cases were decided. To be thus bound, is to be governed by obiter dietim, and is to. ignore the factual integrity of each and every case presented to this Court for its own merit.
The case of Babcock v. Adkins, supra, stands for the proposition that true permissive users may not stack, i.e., persons who are entitled to uninsured motorist coverage only because of their status as occupants, i.e., “permissive users”. In the present case, Craig’s status is not that of a mere occupant or permissive user in the vehicle of an unrelated named insured, therefore, Babcock is not dispositive.
Additionally, in the Case of Rogers v. Goad, supra, (wherein I concurred), nowhere is it stated therein that the coverage was triggered as a consequence of the agency status of the employee. To the contrary, the issue in Rogers was characterized as whether a “permissive-user” employee may stack uninsured motorist coverage under his employer’s automobile fleet insurance policy. A permissive user is one who is entitled to uninsured motorist coverage only because of one’s status as an occupant. See, Babcock, supra. In the present case, occupancy alone does not constitute the gravamen of the factual scenario. Here, Dewayne Craig is not simply a permissive user by reason of occupancy without further relationship to the named insured. At the time in question, this person was acting in the capacity of an agent for the sole benefit of the corporate named insured. Craig’s insurability thus arises not only because of occupancy in a covered vehicle, but because of his relationship to the corporate named insured. “Relationship to Named Insured” vis-a-vis “Occupancy in Covered Vehicle” more accurately embrace the so-called “Class One/Class Two” distinction. Accordingly, the federal court here correctly assessed Craig's status to encompass both categories. In this respect, even were the federal court’s factual determination incorrect, the Uniform Certification of Questions of Law Act, 20 O.S. 1981 § 1601 et seq., is the sole basis for the presentation of questions of law to this Court by a federal court and that Act does not authorize this Court to reverse a federal court’s factual determination in its answer to certified questions of law. Part I, paragraph four, of the majority opinion does so by reference to dietim in a case distinguishable upon its own facts. If one or more of the parties wishes to challenge the federal court’s factual determination, the appropriate place to do so is in the federal tenth circuit, not in state court.
Finally, in the case of Stanton v. American Mutual Liability Insurance Company, supra, this Court with respect to a “permissive user” noted that:
“At the time of the accident, Stanton was not acting in the course of his employment, but he was authorized to use the vehicle for his personal use as part of his compensation with Fuller.” [Emphasis added.]
Our underlying rationale in Stanton was Rogers v. Goad, “because Rogers presented the most analogous situation to the matter [then] before us.” Stanton, at 946. However, the situation manifest in both Stanton and Rogers is factually distinguishable to the present corporate agency situation. Therefore, those cases do not here provide clear precedent. My rationale for the distinction is two-fold:
First, the “named insured” is an incorporeal (without physical body) entity, a principal which can only act through its agents. East Central Oklahoma Electric Coop. v. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co., 505 P.2d 1324 (Okla.1973). A corporation is nothing more than a robot, created by the law, possessing only that sensibility which its management and agents bring to it. Wrigley v. Nottingham, 111 Ga.App. 404, 141 S.E.2d 859 (1965); and, expressed still another way, a corporation is an artificial legal person invisible and intangible, and can only act through its officers and agents. Aimonetto v. Rapid Gas, Inc., 80 S.D. 453, 126 N.W.2d 116 (1964). A corporation is no more than an abstraction, and an abstraction cannot be insured against physical bodily injury. Thus, when the policy’s uninsured motorist [UM] bodily injury provisions are triggered as a consequence of the status of an agent acting at the *219behest of Multi-Media, such agent constructively constitutes the abstract principal, Multi-Media, the named insured. For all practical purposes, the agent here is not merely “Dewayne Craig — an Independent Occupant”, but is, “Multi-Media — the Named Insured”, for Multi-Media cannot act except through him and other agents. East Central, supra. An agent may or may not be a shareholder of the corporation at any particular time; but shareholders cannot remain corporate agents at all times, for it is the action taken and not individual identity which is determinative. Thus, the focus of insurability is not the mere fact of employment; but rather insur-ability in this context rests upon the principal/agent relationship whereby the agent’s actions are in law those of the principal named insured. Otherwise, the “Class One” designation is an illusory UM classification, for there is no physical body to insure against personal injury by an uninsured motorist. Though an incorporeal entity may own property (i.e., vehicles), it has no physical human body, except that of its agents. I am therefore of the opinion that for the purpose of UM bodily injury coverage, the “named insured” designation here refers to those acting in the course and scope of the corporation’s authority — the agents, whether they at any one time be employees, officers or specially designated agents, depending upon the agency question presented under the facts of each case. This is the natural and logical consequence of the settled premise that any attempt to tie uninsured motorist coverage to vehicles alone, and not to people, must fail. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Wendt, 708 P.2d 581 (Okla.1985); also see, Cothren v. Emcasco Insurance Company, 555 P.2d 1037 (Okla.1976).
Secondly, 268 separate insurance premiums have been collected for uninsured motorist coverage. Where separate premiums are collected by an insurance company for the provision of uninsured motorist coverage, the insured is entitled to recover upon each separate coverage purchased. Keel v. MFA Ins. Co., 553 P.2d 153 (Okla.1976); Richardson v. Allstate Ins. Co., 619 P.2d 594 (Okla.1980). In withholding from an insured that for which a premium has been collected, the insurer reaps an unjust enrichment.
Similarly, as part of its policy of insurance, Aetna collected a premium for punitive damages coverage, whereby it voluntarily contracted to assume the risk of a punitive damages recovery. I do not view this contract as coming within the auspices of any established public policy exception and denial of the very punitive damages coverage contracted for is tantamount to an additional unjust enrichment.
I dissent.