Court Opinion

ID: 9884220
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:48:05.334686+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:36.620585
License: Public Domain

FOLEY, Judge
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result but assert as well that the County waived its immunity by purchasing liability insurance. Minn.Stat. § 466.06 (1984) provides:
The governing body of any municipality may procure insurance against liability of the municipality and its officers, *213employees, and agents for damages resulting from its torts and those of its officers, employees, and agents, including torts specified in section 466.03 for which the municipality is immune from liability. * * * The procurement of such insurance constitutes a waiver of the defense of governmental immunity to the extent of the liability stated in the policy
The reasons for the waiver were stated compellingly in Schoening v. United States Aviation Underwriters, Inc., 265 Minn. 119, 128-29, 120 N.W.2d 859, 865 (1963):
[W]here a municipality expends public funds for the purchase of liability insurance, such expenditure constitutes a waiver by the municipality and its insurer to the extent of the policy coverage. Were we to hold otherwise, the funds so expended would be mere gifts to the insurance carriers. In accepting the premium payments the insurer thereby accepts the risk growing out of the municipality’s ownership and operation of municipal facilities. The real effect of this rule is not to deprive the municipality of any right inherent in, and essential to, its governmental functions, but is only to make an insurance carrier liable for the losses which it has contracted to cover in its policy.
See also Geislinger v. Village of Watkins, 269 Minn. 116, 123, 130 N.W.2d 62, 67 (1964) (village waived its right to assert immunity defense by purchasing liability insurance).
In answers to interrogatories, the County stated that it had purchased liability insurance from Home Insurance Company with a policy limit of $300,000. We note that Johnson’s attorney failed to argue to the trial court that the County had waived any immunity. He argues on appeal that the trial judge was aware of the settlement with Susan Clark and that the County’s attorney was well aware of the insurance.
While in a recent case, Wilson v. Ramacher, 352 N.W.2d 389, 393 (Minn.1984), the supreme court refused to consider the issue of whether a city’s purchase of liability insurance was a waiver of discretionary immunity because the plaintiff failed to present the issue to the trial court, it would seem that Minn.R.Civ.P. 60.02, subd. 6, “any other reason justifying relief from the operation of the judgment,” should be invoked and applied here as additional reason to relieve Johnson from the effects of summary judgment. There was ample evidence in the file to suggest the existence of liability insurance by the county. Whether directly asserted by Johnson or not, a policy did, in fact, exist. Since public funds were spent to procure the insurance policy, Johnson should be given the benefit of the policy should he recover at trial.
Upon remand, the trial court should carefully review both the statute and the policy terms to determine the full extent, if any, of a waiver of immunity by the County.