Court Opinion

ID: 9662525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:11:58.034106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:40.304472
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by
Justice KELLER.
Although I agree with the majority’s ultimate conclusion that the Jefferson Circuit Court erred when it granted summary judgment to Appellee, I write separately because I disagree with the majority’s holding that the “process of ‘entering into’ a vehicle can begin no sooner than when a person, or that person’s agent, makes contact with the vehicle with the intention of entering the vehicle.”1 While the majority asserts that its holding is “not inconsistent with” this Court’s previous interpretation of KRS 304.39-020(6)’s “alighting from” language in West American Insurance Co. v. Dickerson,2 today’s majority’s interpretation interprets the process of “entering into” a motor vehicle more narrowly than the Dickerson court interpreted the process of “alighting from” a motor vehicle.
In Dickerson, the Court recognized that the “alighting from” language in KRS 304.39-020(6) referred to a process, or “course of conduct reasonably incident to *575exiting and alighting from an automobile”3 and held that the process ended when “the individual, after alighting, shows an intention, evidenced by an overt act based upon that intention, to undertake a new direction of activity.”4 Although today’s majority recognizes that, logically speaking, the process of “entering into” a vehicle is parallel in scope to the process of “alighting from” a vehicle — i.e., an individual begins the process of “entering into” a motor vehicle when he or she shows an intention, evidenced by an overt act based on that intention, to enter into the vehicle — the majority opinion pays mere lip-service to Dickerson while implicitly concluding that physical contact with the vehicle is the only “overt act” which evidences such an intention.5 I see no reason for such a narrow interpretation — especially in a world where technological developments such as “keyless entry” permit a driver to unlock and open car doors, and even trigger the ignition, by remote. Accordingly, rather than adopting the physical contact requirement that this Court explicitly rejected in Dickerson,6 I believe courts should, on a case-by-case basis, review the sufficiency of evidence demonstrating an overt act in furtherance of a person’s intent to enter a vehicle. In the case at bar, I agree that summary judgment was improper, and I thus concur in the result reached by the majority.
LAMBERT, C.J., joins this concurring opinion.

. Majority Opinion, 91 S.W.3d 571, 573 (2003).

. Ky., 865 S.W.2d 320 (1993) (hereinafter “Dickerson").

. Id. at 322.

. Id.

. See Majority Opinion, supra note 1 at 573 ("Thus, just as the process of alighting from a vehicle ends with evidence of an overt act, the process of entering into a vehicle begins with evidence of the overt act of making contact with the vehicle with the intention of entering it.” (emphasis added)).

. Dickerson, supra note 2 at 322.