Court Opinion

ID: 9551916
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:02:03.720744+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:04.823698
License: Public Domain

Dolliver, J.
(dissenting) — The majority ignores a carefully considered legislative scheme and without the slightest statutory warrant decides that in the event of an interspousal tort only liability insurance will meet the requirements of the financial responsibility act, RCW 46.29. While the financial responsibility act was "designed to give monetary protection to that ever changing and tragically large group of persons who, while lawfully using the highways themselves, suffer serious injury through the negligent use of those highways by others" (italics mine) (LaPoint v. Richards, 66 Wn.2d 585, 590, 403 P.2d 889 (1965)), it specifically was not designed to require that the "monetary protection" be in the form of automobile liability insurance.
This authorization by the legislature of a variety of kinds of "monetary protection" after an accident has occurred is spelled out in great detail in RCW 46.29.060-240. Following an accident which results in the "bodily injury or death of any person or damage to the property of any one person of three hundred dollars or more" (RCW 46.29.060), the driver or the owner of the motor vehicle must (a) deposit security with the Department of Licensing (RCW 46.29.070, .100, .110); or (b) come under one of several exemptions listed in RCW 46.29.080 which exemptions include an automobile liability policy or an automobile liability bond or a qualified self-insurer.
*384This policy decision on the part of the legislature that a multiplicity of methods for showing financial responsibility are available to the owner and driver of a motor vehicle is extended into the portion of the act dealing with proof of financial responsibility for the future, RCW 46.29.250-.600.
If it had been the determination of the legislature that financial responsibility could be shown only by liability insurance, then I could agree the public policy expressed in the financial responsibility act is inconsistent with a family or household exclusionary clause and that the clause should be stricken as void against public policy. To do so, however, with the statute as it is would be a flagrant example of judicial legislation.
If, as is held today by the majority, it were in fact the intent of the legislature to require a negligent spouse to carry insurance where an interspousal tort is claimed in an automobile accident, or to require that all persons injured in a motor vehicle accident were entitled to compensation from an insurance carrier, or to hold that family or household exclusion clauses were invalid, it is logical to believe that at least sometime during the past 8 years — since Freehe v. Freehe, 81 Wn.2d 183, 500 P.2d 771 (1972), which overturned the doctrine of interspousal tort immunity— this intention would have been manifested by the enactment of legislation. It was not.
It may well be as the majority suggests that some of the choices given by the legislature are more difficult than others or that since liability insurance is the most practical way to fulfill the requirements of RCW 46.29, it ought to be the only way. It may also be that the failure of the legislature to recognize this viewpoint does not comport with the sense of what this court believes should be the policy in this state. But as long as the choices have been given, then any change to require that insurance always be available to meet financial responsibility where there is interspousal liability should be by a vote of members of the legislature and not by a vote of the members of this court.
*385I dissent.
Brachtenbach and Hicks, JJ., concur with Dolliver, J. Reconsideration granted March 11, 1981.