Court Opinion

ID: 9793699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:51:36.103415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:40.812885
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE GULBRANDSON,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The majority cite only a Washington Supreme Court opinion wherein a comparable insurance policy provision was held to be ambiguous. Finney v. Farmers Ins. Co. (Wash. 1979), 600 P.2d 1272.
The majority agreed with the rational expressed therein, and I perhaps would do the same if this case were to be decided under Washington law. The author of Finney clearly indicated that that opinion does not cover the factual situation before this Court:
“ . . . nor are we confronted with a factual situation in which the only responsible party was insured under a policy which extended coverage for the accident in question. Here there are two responsible parties, one of which was uninsured, the other underinsured. The use of the word ‘or’ is disjunctive. 1A C. Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction Section 21.14 (4th ed. 1972). Childers v. Childers, 89 Wash.2d 592, 575 P.2d 201 (1978). We are persuaded that the legislature intended to provide uninsured motorist protection where either one of the responsible parties lacks insurance coverage. (Emphasis added.)
“Under Washington law, where the ownership of an automobile is *223admitted and the owner is a passenger, there arises a presumption that, at the time of the accident, the driver was operating the vehicle as the agent or servant of the owner. (Citing cases.) The owner is vicariously liable for the driver’s negligence. Moffitt v. Krueger, supra; Coins v. Washington Motor Coach Co., 34 Wash.2d 1, 208 P.2d 143 (1949).”
Finney, 600 P.2d at 1275-1276.
Finney cited Allstate Ins. Co. v. Chastain (Fla. 1971), 251 So.2d 354, as authority for its position, but correctly stated that in that case the uninsured owner was liable under Florida’s dangerous instrumentality doctrine.
In this case, there is no suggestion that the uninsured owner was a responsible party and I therefore consider the Finney citation to be inadequate authority.
The trial judge, in granting summary judgment for the respondent, relied upon the rationale expressed in Sorbo v. Mendiola (Minn. 1985), 361 N.W.2d 851, and stated:
“I frankly have been tempted by the plight of the defendants to hold that the policies in question are ambiguous, thereby granting the benefit of the doubt to the defendants. But I find it is sufficiently clear that the liable person, the driver Moss, has insurance and the defendants were not struck by an uninsured motorist.”
In my view, the policy definition of “uninsured motor vehicle” as a land motor vehicle, the use of which is not insured, is not ambiguous and I would affirm the order of the trial judge.