Court Opinion

ID: 9539851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:11:04.784249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:24.825600
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Vice Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The court holds today that insurers are not allowed to exclude from uninsured/underinsured motorist policy coverage vehicles owned by “any government or any of its political subdivisions or agencies.” I must recede from this view.
Mandatory inclusion of coverage for the vehicles in controversy here is woven from the fiber of thin air. Nothing in § 36361 commands insurers, explicitly or implicitly, to provide the protection imposed by today’s opinion. In the context of UM coverage, publicly owned vehicles constitute both statutorily and constitutionally a totally separate class.2 Because government tortfeasors enjoy limited liability, all of their vehicles are by definition under-insured. There is no warrant in law for prohibiting private insurers from rejecting unacceptable, grossly substandard risks which embrace vehicles whose owners stand under a distinctly separate constitutional tort liability rubric. Public tort-feasors, unlike their private counterpart, *944are shielded from full responsibility for the harm they deal. If indeed there is a class of vehicles in a category justifiably excludable for UM coverage purposes, it is a government-owned motor fleet.3
Today’s pronouncement transmogrifies the § 3636 uninsured/underinsured motorist protection into a veritable insurer’s excess liability for a nonexistent tort obligation of public bodies whose ex delicto accountability stands limited by law. The risk the court imposes clearly extends beyond the parameters of the legislative mandate for the class of indemnity regulated by § 3636.4
The statute (§ 3636) mandates only indemnity, which denotes protection for the legal responsibility of an uninsured/underinsured third person.5 Today’s court-mandated UM coverage extends far beyond that perimeter. It compels protection for a governmental tort-feasor’s “extralegal” liability (an obligation which exceeds the monetary limit authorized by law).
There is yet another factor which militates strongly against today’s mandatory inclusion of government-owned vehicles within the umbrella of UM protection. Section 3636 clearly contemplates and preserves the UM carrier’s claim to subrogation.6 Compelled assumption of “excess” governmental tort liability leaves the UM insurer without a primary obligor against whom subrogation may be pressed.
In short, I would uphold the policy exclusion here in controversy to the extent it relieves the UM insurer of what is, in essence, forced assumption of a primary obligation for that portion of the governmental tortfeasor’s liability which exceeds the statutorily authorized monetary limits.

. 36 O.S.1981 § 3636.

. See Black v. Ball Janitorial Service, Inc., Okl., 730 P.2d 510, 514-515 [1986].

. For cases from other jurisdictions that deal with the definition and the mandatory inclusion of government-owned vehicles under the uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, see An-not.: Right of Insured, Precluded from Recovering against Owner or Operator of Uninsured Motor Vehicle because of Governmental Immunity, to Recover Uninsured Motorist Benefits, 55 A.L.R.4th 806; Annot.: Automobile Insurance: What Constitutes an "Uninsured” or “Unknown” Vehicle or Motorist, within Uninsured Motorist Coverage, 26 A.L.R.3d 883 § 12.5.

. See Barfield v. Barfield, Okl., 742 P.2d 1107, 1113 [1987] (Opala, J., dissenting); Karlson v. City of Oklahoma City, Okl., 711 P.2d 72, 75-76 [1985] (Opala, J., dissenting).

. UM coverage is a recognized form of indemnity. It is the insurer's primary or “first-party" contractual obligation to pay for the tortious act of another — the uninsured/underinsured motorist — who is legally responsible for payment. See Uptegraft v. Home Ins. Co., infra note 6 at 684-685; State Insurance Fund v. Taron, Okl., 333 P.2d 508, 509-510 [1958] (the court's syllabus ¶2); Bill Hodges Truck Co. v. Humphrey, Okl.App., 704 P.2d 94, 96 [1985].

.36 O.S.1981 § 3636(E), infra; Porter v. MFA Mut. Ins. Co., Okl, 643 P.2d 302, 305 [1982]; Uptegraft v. Home Ins. Co., Okl., 662 P.2d 681, 686-687 [1983].
The pertinent terms of 36 O.S.1981 § 3636(E) are:
"(E) In the event of payment to any person under the coverage required by this section and subject to the terms and conditions of such coverage, the insurer making such payment shall, to the extent thereof, be entitled to the proceeds of any settlement or judgment resulting from the exercise of any rights of recovery of such person against any person or organization legally responsible for the bodily injury for which such payment is made, including the proceeds recoverable from the assets of the insolvent insurer. * * * [Emphasis added.]"