Court Opinion

ID: 9851204
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:08:49.621132+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:51.159747
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I dissent.
By denying plaintiff the right to aggregate her uninsured motorist (UM) coverage, the majority have reached a harsh result. Plaintiff was injured by *470an uninsured motorist and her damages were in excess of $30,000. She was covered by two separate insurance policies with the same carrier, each providing for up to $15,000 in UM coverage. Yet, because of the majority’s gratuitous reading of the “antistacking” clause of the Insurance Code (Ins. Code, § 11580.2, subd. (d)), she will receive only $15,000, less than half of her actual damages. In effect, plaintiff receives no benefit whatever from the second UM policy, although she paid, and State Farm received, a full premium for it.
There is a sharp division of authority among the jurisdictions as to whether clauses similar to that included in plaintiff’s policy can be applied to limit damages so that the insured is not entitled to full recovery under the UM endorsement of more than one policy. (See Widiss, A Guide to Uninsured Motorist Coverage (1969) §§ 2.59, 2.60, 2.61, pp. 106-116 [hereinafter Widiss, Guide to UMC]; Glidden v. Farmers Automobile Insurance Ass’n (1974) 57 Ill.2d 330 [312 N.E.2d 247, 249-250].) A majority, however, refuse to enforce antistacking provisions in insurance policies. (Widiss, Guide to UMC (1981 Supp.) §§ 2.59, 2.60, 2.61, pp. 198-222.) These courts reason that to allow an insurer to prorate damages results in the issuance of a policy below the limits required by the uninsured motorist statute (e.g., United Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Runnels (1978) 178 Ind.App. 435 [382 N.E.2d 1015, 1016-1017]), and that the insured is entitled to and reasonably expects to recover under each policy because he has paid separate premiums for such coverage. (E.g., Glidden v. Farmers Automobile Insurance Ass’n, supra, 312 N.E.2d 247, 250-251.) As a leading commentator on California uninsured motorist law queried, “Assume an insured pays for extra coverage, might it not be assumed that he wishes to be protected for all the damages he might suffer and not just be bound by the minimal limits of the financial responsibility law?” (Eisler, Cal. Uninsured Motorist Law Handbook (3d ed. 1979) § 8.7, p. 242.)
The majority here conclude that plaintiff has received something for the second premium: “additional protection for additional risks.” This “added risk” apparently arises from the possibility that if both the insured cars were being driven at the same time they might be involved in simultaneous accidents with uninsured motorists. I submit that such added risk is as remote as being struck by Halley’s comet and is not an element of second car UM coverage that the insured could reasonably have contemplated. Furthermore, such actuarial hypothesizing does not withstand scrutiny because of the peculiarities of UM coverage.
UM coverage is not tied to the use of a particular vehicle, or to the particular insured who pays the premiums. It covers—as in the present case—relatives living in the same household, when driving the insured’s *471car, but also when driving in someone else’s uninsured vehicle, and even when injured as pedestrians. Obviously, even with a single UM policy, it is already calculated into the premiums that two accidents could occur simultaneously. When a single carrier sells two policies with UM coverage, the risk it reasonably contemplates is not more accidents, but liability on both policies when one accident occurs. In no case does the added risk cited by the majority account for the full premium charged to plaintiff’s father on the second of his two policies. Rather, by virtue of the majority’s holding, State Farm will be unjustly enriched at plaintiff’s expense.
The majority apply the code’s proration clause (Ins. Code, § 11580.2, subd. (d)) to the present facts with the view that if prorating is avoidable, so much the better. I agree with the majority that the main purpose of the prorating clause is to avoid controversies among insurance companies. It assures that an insurer does not pay a disproportionate amount of the loss that is to be shared by another insurer. (See 8C Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice (1981) § 5102.45, p. 486.)
As the majority concede, the Legislature did not contemplate prorating by a single insurer where it would be a mere arithmetical exercise. I would conclude from this, however, not that the statute applies nonetheless to the present facts, but that it is meaningless where, as here, a single insurer is involved. (See Woolston v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Company (W.D.Ark. 1969) 306 F.Supp. 738, 742; United Sec. Ins. Co. v. Mason (1978) 59 Ill.App.3d 982 [376 N.E.2d 653, 656]; Glidden v. Farmers Automobile Insurers Ass’n, supra, 312 N.E.2d 247, 250; United Services Automobile Association v. Dokter (1970) 86 Nev. 917 [478 P.2d 583, 584].)
Nothing in the legislative history or case law supports the majority’s assertion that the “other insurance” clause is aimed to protect insurance companies by minimizing their liability. So long as there is no recovery for a plaintiff beyond the amount of actual damages, the thrust of the UM statute is to protect injured parties, not to allow insurance companies to collect premiums for coverage they know they will not provide. Worse than prorating for its own sake would be paying premiums for their own sake, and I conclude that the Legislature contemplated neither. The policy in California has always been to encourage the purchase of insurance—that was why UM coverage was made quasi-mandatory by statute. Requiring multiple premiums for no more coverage than is provided by a single policy frustrates the legitimate expectations of the insured who paid for the UM policies.
The California cases cited by the majority in support of their position are distinguishable. Rudder v. Farmers Insurance Exchange (1980) 107 Cal.App.3d 158 [165 Cal.Rptr. 562, 21 A.L.R.4th 205], and Mid-Century *472Insurance Co. v. Koch (1970) 11 Cal.App.3d 1019 [90 Cal.Rptr. 280], held that subdivision (d) and the “other insurance” clause in the policy prohibited stacking, but these cases could have applied the pro rata clause because they involved policies issued by different insurers.1
In sum, the limitation on uninsured motorist coverage authorized by subdivision (d) should not apply where, as here, the policies are issued by the same insurer and there is no likelihood that the insured will recover more than his actual damage. Thus, I would conclude that the “other insurance” provision in State Farm’s policy, which echoes subdivision (d), is also inapplicable and State Farm should be held liable for the payment of UM benefits under both policies.
Bird, C. J., concurred.
Appellants’ petition for a rehearing was denied January 16, 1986. Bird, C. J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.

Koch goes on to state that even in the absence of a provision like subdivision (d), most jurisdictions hold that the uninsured motorist coverages may not be stacked. (11 Cal.App.3d at p. 1023.) It cites for this proposition Widiss, Guide to UMC. Whatever may have been the situation in 1970, when Koch was decided, the 1981 supplement to the Widiss treatise acknowledges that the majority of the jurisdictions invalidate antistacking clauses in insurance policies. (1981 Supp. §§ 2.59, 2.60, 2.61, pp. 198-222.)