Court Opinion

ID: 9748224
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:56:01.642154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:33.172957
License: Public Domain

DANIEL E. SCOTT, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Notwithstanding the court’s painstaking analysis, I cannot square its result with our supreme court’s reasoning in Jones1 and Ritchie,2 which I consider to be controlling on the issues in this case.
I also offer these observations, for whatever they may be worth, with no intent to criticize anyone and with full appreciation for sanctity of contract and stare decisis. It approaches a fiction, in my view, to think that the complicated analyses in this and other recent UIM cases yield “the meaning which would be attached by an ordinary [insurance purchaser] of average understanding.”3 I do not fault this court for making and laying out charts to distinguish its policy interpretation under Lynch4 from the trial court’s interpretation based on Ritchie and Jones. Indeed, it may be almost necessary to do so given the increasing complexity of relevant opinions and the nuances upon which they turn. Yet a divergence may be developing between our espoused consumer-based standard of interpretation and the sophisticated policy comparisons and legal analy-ses that we actually (and per recent case law, perhaps necessarily) undertake.
*599As things now stand, even legally sophisticated persons may find it practically impossible to know their UIM coverage for such scenarios, which cannot be a desirable situation.

. Jones v. Mid-Century Ins. Co., 287 S.W.3d 687 (Mo. banc 2009).

. Ritchie v. Allied Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 307 S.W.3d 132 (Mo. banc 2009).

. Ritchie, 307 S.W.3d at 135 (quoting Seeck v. Geico Gen. Ins. Co., 212 S.W.3d 129, 132 (Mo. banc 2007)).

. Lynch v. Shelter Mut. Ins. Co., 325 S.W.3d 531 (Mo.App.2010).