Court Opinion

ID: 9525548
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:04:45.545692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:15:29.215300
License: Public Domain

O’Connor, J.
(dissenting, with whom Wilkins and Greaney, JJ., join). As the court has concluded, the plaintiff is entitled to a judgment declaring that the underinsurance coverage of Aetna’s policy is available to her only if she is “the Named Insured as stated in Item 1 of the declarations.” Very clearly, the plaintiff is not the named insured as stated in item 1 of the declarations, namely “Dominican Sisters of Charity Presentation Inc. and/or Dominican Sisters of Charity of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin, Inc.” The fact that the plaintiff has “renounced her right to material goods and has recognized that everything belongs to the community,” ante at 388, does not mean that the plaintiff has, or could have even if she had wanted to, relinquished her individuality and given up her identity. Indeed, if “Sister Thattil has merged her identity with that of the order,” as the court says she has, and if the heading of this case is correct, this case presents the anomalous situation of a party suing herself (or itself). The truth is that the plaintiff, Sister Thattil, is a member of an incorporated order of nuns, a defendant, but Sister Thattil does not constitute the order. The court’s result oriented indulgence in the fiction that Sister *391Thattil is the incorporated order to which she belongs is unjust to the defendant insurer.
“[The court] must construe the words of the policy according to ‘the fair meaning of the language used, as applied to the subject matter,’ ... as long as the statutory language or legislative policy of G. L. c. 175, § 113L, is not contravened.” Manning v. Fireman’s Fund Am. Ins. Cos., 397 Mass. 38, 40 (1986) (citations omitted). Johnson v. Hanover Ins. Co., 400 Mass. 259, 266 (1987). It cannot reasonably be said that, according to the fair meaning of the language used in item 1 of the policy’s declarations, the plaintiff is the Named Insured, or that, according to the fair meaning of any other provision, the plaintiff is entitled to recover under Aetna’s policy. Also, in my view and contrary to the concluding sentence of the court’s opinion, it cannot reasonably be argued that the legislative policy served by G. L. c. 175, § 113L, is contravened if the underinsured motorist coverage does not apply to the plaintiff. Section 113L “was intended to protect ‘the named insured and members of his family in the event of death or injury caused by the negligence of an uninsured [or underinsured] motorist, whether such accident victims are occupants of a motor vehicle or pedestrians.’ 1968 Senate Doc. No. 1030, at 6-7.” Johnson v. Hanover Ins. Co., supra at 263. Sister Thattil simply is not “the named insured [or] member of his family,” whom § 113L was designed to protect, and the court should be most reluctant to “declare as violative of public policy a provision which, at least with respect to mandatory underin-surance, has been explicitly sanctioned by the Legislature.” Santos v. Lumbermens Mut. Casualty Co., 408 Mass. 70, 86 (1990).
We have said that “[w]here an insurance policy provision leads to an unconscionable result, or violates public policy, it may be held invalid even if, upon a close reading, the terms are clear.” Id. Even if this principle were to call not only for the striking of an invalid provision but also for the rewriting of the policy in some circumstances, as the court does here, the principle is not properly applied to this case. As is dis*392cussed above, Aetna’s insurance policy does not violate public policy. Furthermore, it does not lead to an unconscionable result in this case. Surely, it cannot rightly be said that the policy yields an unconscionable result in this case because no Aetna representative told the Dominican Sisters in advance of selling the policy what situations the clear language of the policy would not cover. No misrepresentations were made, and the underinsured motorist coverage was not illusory since, if the plaintiff had been injured while occupying an insured automobile owned by the order, underinsured motorist coverage would have been available to her.
In my view, no underinsured motorist coverage is available to the plaintiff under the policy on which she relies. That policy neither violates public policy nor leads to an unconscionable result and its language is clear. Justice requires that the judgment be reversed and the case be remanded to the Superior Court for the entry of summary judgment for Aetna.