Court Opinion

ID: 9583702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:41:21.388039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:41.880948
License: Public Domain

PAGE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The court’s decision, which allows the renter of a rental car, who has his or her own liability insurance coverage and who declines to purchase the rental car company’s liability insurance supplement to escape responsibility for the renter’s involvement in an accident with the rental car, is wrong, fundamentally unfair, and poor public policy. What purpose is served by allowing the renter and the renter’s insurance company to avoid responsibility for the renter’s action? I would suggest none. To the extent that it is asserted that this result *692is necessary in order to fulfill the purposes of Minnesota’s No-Fault Automobile Insurance Act, that simply is not the case. The purpose of the No-Fault Act is “[t]o relieve the severe economic distress of uncompensated victims of automobile accidents.” Minn.Stat. § 65B.42(1) (1996). On the facts before us, that purpose is met and will always be met. The terms of the rental agreement at issue make clear that under any circumstances “Elf neither [the customer] nor the operator of the ear have [liability] insurance,” Hertz will provide coverage. Thus, no “victim,” injured as a result of an accident with one of Hertz’s rental cars, will remain “uncompensated.”
Finally, the result reached today is poor public policy. If Hertz cannot rely on its customers to either provide their own liability insurance protection or, at the time of rental, purchase Hertz’s liability insurance supplement, the cost of that protection is likely to be passed on by Hertz to all of its rental car customers. There is no sound reason why individual renters should not be required to bear the cost of their own liability insurance protection.
Therefore, I dissent.