Court Opinion

ID: 9791257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:08:14.577379+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:34.379023
License: Public Domain

HATHAWAY, Judge,
dissenting.
Because I disagree with the reasoning of and the result reached by the majority, I respectfully dissent. First, the majority concludes that the uninsured motorist statute was designed to “close the gap in protection offered by the Uniform Motor Vehicle Safety Responsibility Act, §§ 28-1101 et seq., by requiring insurance companies issuing automobile liability policies to include coverage for injuries suffered by their insureds for damages caused by uninsured motorists.” The majority goes on to conclude that “[t]he gap that was closed related to injuries to the insured, and not injuries to third persons.”
I believe the majority has read an exclusion into both the statute and the policy at hand that does not exist. Neither restricts coverage to injuries to the insured; both were intended to provide coverage for damages sustained as a result of injury or death caused by an uninsured motorist. Thus, I believe the majority’s reasoning is flawed and flies in the face of the clear language of the statute as well as its underlying policy and purpose. There is nothing in the statute to restrict an insured’s claim to a direct claim for personal injuries and to eliminate coverage for derivative claims such as those for wrongful death or, as another example, loss of consortium. While I agree that such claims are not actual bodily injury claims, they are nevertheless claims which arise out of bodily injury or death. Herring v. Lumbermen’s Mut. Cas. Co., 144 Ariz. 254, 697 P.2d 337 (1985); Campbell v. Farmers Ins. Co. of Ariz., 155 Ariz. 102, 745 P.2d 160 (App. 1987); Green v. Mid-America Preferred Ins. Co., 156 Ariz. 265, 751 P.2d 581 (App. 1987).
The uninsured motorist statute was designed to protect “persons insured who are legally entitled to recover damages from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles because of bodily injury, sickness or disease, including death, resulting therefrom.” A.R.S. § 20-259.01(A). Here, Luis is an insured. Luis is also legally entitled to recover damages from the owner of the vehicle that killed his father. Finally, his *373legal entitlement arises out of the bodily injury and death of his father.
If an insurer is prepared to and in fact does provide uninsured motorist coverage for its insured who is injured as a pedestrian, I fail to see how the insurer may legitimately protest against providing uninsured motorist coverage for damages sustained by its insured which arise out of the injury to a third person unless it excludes or limits such coverage. Neither results from the insured’s use of an automobile. However, both claims result from an uninsured person’s use of a motor vehicle. Cf. Herring, supra, (minor children entitled to coverage under father’s policy where father killed by uninsured motorist).
Additionally, I disagree with the court of appeals’ reasoning in Bakken v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 139 Ariz. 296, 678 P.2d 481 (App.1983), although I believe the case is distinguishable. First, in Bakken, as in Herring and Campbell, the claimants were apparently not the named insureds; the injured or deceased person was the named insured. The claimants in Bakken were attempting to collect against two policies which named the decedent as insured, in violation of the policies’ anti-stacking provisions. We do not have such a problem here. Second, in all three of these cases, the claimants were asking the court to create more coverage than the policies provided. I agree with these cases insofar as they stand for the principle that where claimants are seeking coverage under the named insured’s policy and the named insured is the only person who has been injured or killed, any policy provisions regarding one bodily injury must apply. Thus, the limits were construed to be $15,-000 as opposed to $30,000 in Herring and the “each person” as opposed to the “each accident” provision was correctly found to be applicable in Campbell. A simple example illustrates this point. If Luis were not the only person who was an insured under his policy and who had a claim arising out of Enrique’s death, the one bodily injury provision of Luis’s policy would apply and he and any other insured would only be entitled to the $15,000 limits as opposed to the $30,000 limits, applicable where two or more persons sustain bodily injury.
As a final point in this regard, it appears to me that Herring and Campbell where the claimants were found to be entitled to compensation under the named insured’s policy, do not support the reasoning in Bakken and the majority herein. The claimants had to have been able to collect under the named insured’s policy because they too were covered persons under the policies in those cases. To assume otherwise would be illogical. In other words, these claimants had to be members of the named insured's household or otherwise come within the coverage provisions of the policies, else any person, insured or not, could have claimed a right to benefits under the named insured’s policy simply because they had a damage claim arising out of the named insured’s death or injury. Thus, it is not the injured or deceased person’s status as an insured but the claimant’s status as an insured that is the primary focus. Here, Luis is actually the named insured whose damage claim arises out of death caused by an uninsured motorist.
Finally, I reject outright State Farm’s primary argument against coverage. State Farm would have this court read into the policy an exclusion for derivative damage claim coverage, restricting it to where the party injured is a member of the named insured’s household. We have never read exclusions or limitations into policies. There are a multitude of cases holding that, if anything, where there is an exclusion it shall be strictly construed in favor of the insured. Where the exclusion does not even exist, we surely shall not read it into the policy so as to defeat coverage simply because the carrier contends it is reasonable. Moreover, laying aside the question of the validity of such an exclusion, the fact that such exclusions existed at the time but were not part of Luis’s policy indicates that the carrier knew exactly how to restrict or exclude coverage in this context. It did not do so here.
*374For these reasons, I would reverse the decision of the court below.