Court Opinion

ID: 9697622
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:23:17.474011+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:33.681853
License: Public Domain

Justice ZAZZALI,
dissenting.
The majority opinions in both Pinto v. New Jersey Manufacturers Ins. Co., 183 N.J. 405, 874 A.2d 520 (2005), and in this appeal represent principled efforts to address an important question, but I would reach different resolutions of these matters. For the reasons that I express in my dissent in Pinto, supra, I respectfully disagree with the majority’s opinion. I add only the following.
According to the majority, Murawski cannot recover UIM benefits under his employer’s auto insurance policy because he is not a named insured. The concerns that I identify in my Pinto dissent apply to this matter as well because this policy contains an ambiguous provision identical to the one at issue in Pinto. However, the argument favoring full UIM coverage applies with even greater force here because, as a practical matter, it is nearly impossible for an employer such as Belafsky to designate employees by name in its policy.
Identifying individual employees in the policy would require Belafsky to amend its policy each time it hires or loses an employee. As Murawski argues, that requirement would be partic*427ularly onerous in these circumstances because Belafsky’s employees are members of a construction trade, apparently roofers. In the construction industry, it is common for changes in the employee complement to occur on a regular basis, sometimes daily. To meet its staffing needs for a project, Belafsky may obtain employees from the local hiring hall, recall former employees, or hire “off the street.” The fact that construction employees often commence work early in the morning, long before insurance agencies open for business, further hinders the ability of an employer to amend the policy on a continuing basis. It simply may not be possible for Belafsky to designate an employee as a named insured in those early hours. Accordingly, the failure to name individual employees in the policy does not suggest that Belafsky intended to limit coverage for its employees. Rather, given the constantly changing employee roster, we should construe the reference to the corporation as the named insureds to encompass all of Belafsky’s current employees on a given date.
I therefore would hold that Belafsky likely intended to purchase a policy that covered all of its employees. In fact, the trial court found that the “more valid” interpretation of the policy is that Murawski’s employer intended that “every employee be a named insured rather than [that] no employee be a named insured.” However, even if there is doubt in that regard, principles of statutory construction require us to resolve that ambiguity in favor of Murawski. See, e.g., Botti v. CNA Ins. Co., 361 N.J.Super. 217, 224, 824 A.2d 1120 (App.Div.2003). Because I believe that Murawski is a named insured, I would not remand for a determination whether he is a resident of his mother’s household and, therefore, covered by her auto insurance. Instead, I would enter judgment in favor of Murawski and allow him to recover full UIM benefits under Belafsky’s insurance policy.
Justice ALBIN joins in this dissent.
For affirmance and remandment — Chief Justice PORITZ and Justices LaVECCHIA, WALLACE and RIVERA-SOTO — 4.
For reversal — Justices ZAZZALI and ALBIN — 2.