Court Opinion

ID: 9749966
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 14:08:21.857184+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:00.679885
License: Public Domain

DANIEL E. SCOTT, Chief Judge,
concurring.
I concur. Missouri’s established rule bars Appellant from acquiring any part of *395Ms. Scroggins’ rights against a tortfeasor by reason of paying medical expenses. Jones v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 497 S.W.2d 809, 812 (Mo.App.1973). Assignments, subrogation, and contractual “trust” or reimbursement provisions all fail alike.1 Even liens authorized by another state’s laws have been trumped by our strong public policy. See Farmers Ins. Co. v. McFarland, 976 S.W.2d 559, 565-66 (Mo.App.1998); Gilmore v. Attebery, 899 S.W.2d 164 (Mo.App.1995).
Marvin’s and Ford Credit2 are outliers that are intellectually defensible, yet a slippery slope toward case law balkanization. Cf. White v. Director of Revenue, No. SC90400, slip op. at 9-14 (Mo. banc Aug.3, 2010), which describes in part and seeks to remedy sixteen years of fragmented precedent in license revocation cases. Marvin’s relies solely on Ford Credit, which summarily dismissed our Eastern District’s observation that assigning a claim vs. assigning its proceeds “is a distinction without a difference.”3 Neither case mentions McFarland or Gilmore, prior opinions from the same district that declined to treat liens differently from assignment, subrogation, or reimbursement claims.
A lawyer with the time and interest might parse the distinctions between such remedies, but they all seek the same end in this context. Public policy shields Ms. Scroggins from assignment, subrogation, trust theory, and contractual reimbursement claims. To treat lien clauses otherwise end-runs these protections and, as in Schweiss, is a distinction without a difference.

.See, e.g., Waye v. Bankers Multiple Line Ins., 796 S.W.2d 660 (Mo.App. 1990)(reimburse-ment clause); Jones, 497 S.W.2d at 813 (trust theory); Travelers Indem. Co. v. Chumbley, 394 S.W.2d 418, 425 (Mo.App.1965)(subrogation). The few exceptions mandated by Missouri statutes or federal law do not apply here.

. Marvin's Midtown Chiro. Clinic, L.L.C. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 142 S.W.3d 751 (Mo.App.2004) and Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Allstate Ins. Co., 2 S.W.3d 810 (Mo.App.1999), which were cited by Appellant and discussed in the principal opinion.

. Schweiss v. Sisters of Mercy, St. Louis, Inc., 950 S.W.2d 537, 538 (Mo.App.1997), distinguished in Ford Credit, 2 S.W.3d at 812-13.