Court Opinion

ID: 9610900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:48:30.841135+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:06.132298
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
dissenting:
This is a proceeding for certiorari to review a trial judge’s certified pre-trial order in an action against the plaintiff’s (Flora Fullman’s) risk carrier to recover for personal injuries under the terms of her uninsured motorist coverage and against the allegedly offending driver of another car (Curtis Don Tidmore). In the order certified for our review the trial judge ruled that the jury should be informed of the limit of the defendant’s public liability coverage and of the terms of the plaintiff’s own protection under the uninsured motorist endorsement.
The court holds today that all of the following matters should be withheld from the jury: (a) the identity of the defendant’s public liability insurer and that of the plaintiff’s uninsured motorist carrier; and (b) the nature and the limits of the parties’ coverage.
For the reasons to be explained, I would deny certiorari.
I.
CERTIORARI WAS IMPROVIDENTLY GRANTED
Under the terms of 12 O.S.1981 § 952(3) this court may, in its discretion, review a certified interlocutory order “which affects a substantial part of the merits of the controversy” [emphasis supplied]. The order tendered in this case does not deal with the merits of the pending action but merely with evidentiary matters. The word “merits” has a well-defined meaning in law. It signifies the real or substantial grounds of action or of defense. Practice, procedure and evidence are not embraced within the term. These are matters “dehors the merits”. Flick v. Crouch, Okl., 434 P.2d 256, 261 [1967].
The issues before us clearly are outside the merits of the controversy below. If this petition warrants our attention, § 952(3) certiorari for corrective relief in advance of trial should routinely be granted whenever an unfavorable in limine ruling is challenged here as less than perfect.
II.
THE COURT’S PRONOUNCEMENT SETTLES ISSUES ARISING UNDER THE NOW REPEALED § 3636 COVERAGE
The collision in this controversy occurred January 28,1979. Rights under § 3636 [uninsured motorist coverage] depend on the statute in effect when the policy was issued or was last renewed. MFA Ins. Co. v. Hankins, Okl., 610 P.2d 785, 787 [1980] and McKinley v. Prudential, Okl.App., 619 P.2d 1269, 1270 [1980], The plaintiff’s rights against her own risk carrier are hence governed here by the terms of 36 O.S.Supp. 1976 § 3636. Under that act (a) there is no liability by the uninsured motorist carrier unless the tortfeasor’s public liability limit is less than the limit of the uninsured motorist coverage and (b) the claim of the § 3636 insured stands limited to the difference between the higher § 3636 limit and the adverse [other] vehicle’s public liability limit. Mid-Continent Casualty Co. v. Theus, Okl., 592 P.2d 519 [1979].
*1284The 1979 version of § 3636 — currently in effect — makes the uninsured motorist coverage applicable whenever the tortfeasor’s public liability limit is less than the amount of the plaintiff’s claim, “regardless of the amount of coverage of . .. parties in relation to each other” [emphasis mine], and the claim of a § 3636 insured is no longer re-duceable by the limit of the tortfeasor’s public liability protection.1 36 O.S.1981 § 3636(C) and (E). With the passage of the 1979 amendment, the § 3636 coverage became transformed from protection against uninsured or underinsured persons into a veritable first-party automobile personal injury protection from loss occasioned by a motorist with liability limit of less than the asserted claim. Today, the extent of the insurer’s direct § 3636 exposure is vastly greater than under the prior 1968 and 19762 versions of our law. That exposure no longer is dependent on a comparison of respective policy limits. Nor may it be diminished by the insurance protection available to the adverse vehicle. The new indemnity of the § 3636 carrier is not partial but total. Whenever the coverage applies, the insured gets it all from the carrier.
III.
THE COURT’S PRONOUNCEMENT PROVIDES CASE LAW IRRELEVANT . TO LITIGATION STRATEGY PATTERNS LIKELY TO EVOLVE UNDER THE 1979 AMENDMENT TO § 3636
In Keel v. MFA Insurance Company, Okl., 553 P.2d 153, 158 [1976], this court made four procedural options available to one who seeks to vindicate rights under an uninsured motorist endorsement.3 With the 1979 redefinition of § 3636 coverage, there is no longer as great a need for the insured routinely to join as a party-defendant the tortfeasor with insufficient public liability policy limit. It can be expected that more § 3636 claims which exceed the tortfeasor’s public liability limit doubtless will be litigated by the insured directly with his insurer. This is so because after the 1979 amendment, the latter stands liable for the entire claim that falls under this rubric. Neither the tortfeasor nor his insurer need now be brought in as a participant in § 3636 litigation unless the plaintiff’s recovery against his own carrier turns out to be less than the tortfeasor’s public liability protection. In the wake of the 1979 change, the § 3636 carrier in suit will not often have the opportunity to escape being identified as a party before the jury. In most cases such carrier is apt to be the only party-defendant in the action. The veil of anonymity provided § 3636 insurers by today’s opinion likely will prove more illusory than real. Of the four alternatives offered by Keel, only the first — a suit directly and solely against the § 3636 carrier — will present a viable initial option to a post-1979 plaintiff who is amply insured. A later action against the tortfeasor — and thus indirectly against the latter’s insurer — would represent but a contingency to be used in case recovery against the § 3636 carrier be less than the tortfeasor’s public liability limit.
*1285IV.
SUMMARY
Even if the issues tendered to us today were on the merits of the pending suit, I would still deny certiorari. This is so because we are called upon to deal here with obsolescent legal lore that will soon become purely antiquarian. This court’s energies should be expended neither on pretrial review of in limine rulings nor on the law that was.
I am authorized to state that DOOLIN, J., joins in my views.

. Travis, Oklahoma: Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage, Cases and Tactics, [Oklahoma County Bar Association’s CLE, 1979].

. Okla.Sess.L. 1968 pgs. 163-164 and Okla. Sess.L. 1976 pgs. 32-33.

. These options are:
“(1) He may file an action directly against his insurance company without joining the uninsured motorist as a party defendant and litigate all of the issues of liability and damages in that one action. Associated Indemnity Corp. v. Cannon, 536 P.2d 920 (Okl.1975). [Emphasis supplied by the text].
(2) He may file an action joining both the uninsured motorist and the insurance company as party defendants and litigate all issues of liability and damages in one action.
(3) He may file an action against the uninsured motorist without joining the insurance company as a party defendant, but give adequate notice of the filing and pendency of such action to the insurance company so they take whatever action they desire, including intervention.
(4) He may file an action against the uninsured motorist and give no notice to the insurance company.”