Court Opinion

ID: 9565093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:14:51.381851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:23.845039
License: Public Domain

Carrico, J.,
dissenting.
I subscribe to the view expressed by the majority that insurance policies are to be construed by what is written, not by what is omitted, and courts cannot supply lacking language. I also embrace the proposition that if a policy permits of two constructions equally fair, the one which provides greater indemnity will prevail. I cannot agree, however, with the result reached by the majority.
Paragraph (a) of the medical payments portion of the policy provides coverage to an insured injured while occupying a defined owned automobile. Paragraph (b) provides coverage to an insured while occupying a defined non-owned automobile. Paragraph (c) provides coverage to an insured when he is injured “through being struck by an automobile.”
*385The majority says that nothing in paragraph (c) “explicitly excludes coverage when the automobile occupied by the insured is one of a class different from the classes named in paragraphs (a) and (b).” That is doubtless true, but it is no answer to the problem. The question is: what coverage is included?
To say, as the majority says, that the plaintiffs decedent was covered in the present case, one must read paragraph (c) to provide coverage to an insured injured “while occupying any vehicle not defined in paragraphs (a) and (b) when such vehicle is struck by an automobile.” To so construe the policy adds to paragraph (c) language which obviously has been omitted and at the same time reduces the other two paragraphs to almost meaningless application, possibly leaving only single-car accidents covered by paragraphs (a) and (b).
I construe paragraph (c), when read together with paragraphs (a) and (b), to provide coverage when an insured is struck by an automobile while he is a pedestrian, an onlooker at the scene of an accident, an occupant of a rocking chair on his front porch, or in other similar situations not involving occupancy of a motor vehicle. This, to me, is the only reasonable construction the policy language permits. I would reverse.
Harrison, J., joins in this dissent.