Court Opinion

ID: 9723104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:02:33.168367+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:44.849221
License: Public Domain

KAUS, P. J., Dissenting.
I respectfully disagree. If this case involved an important moral issue, I might join the majority in an interpretation of section 11580.9 of the Insurance Code which involves, as I shall demonstrate, some rather massive rewriting. Since, however, the case involves nothing more than a straightforward application of a code section which attempted to make statutory order out of decisional chaos, I protest against an interpretation which unnecessarily ignores the clear language of section 11580.9—a section which the Legislature apparently wanted to keep unsoiled from excessive judicial gloss, declaring in section 11580.8 that it “expresses the total public policy of this state respecting the order in which two or more . . . policies . . . shall apply,...”
The basic policy which section 11580.9 expresses is the one stated in subdivision (d) and applied by the trial court—that the policy which describes the vehicle as an owned vehicle is the one that bears the loss. Since this provision usually becomes relevant when some other applicable policy was issued to the'driver who was actually at fault, I deduce from the statute that the Legislature was not primarily interested in dumping the loss on the insurer who had issued a policy to the negligent driver.
To be sure, subdivisions (a), (b) and (c) provide exceptions from the basic rule of subdivision (d). They should be given effect where they apply. This, however, is not such a case.
Subdivision (a) by its express terms applies where several policies cover the same motor vehicle with respect to a “liability loss” and one—and only one—of these policies is issued to an insured who is in the *491automobile business. Then (1) if that insured or one of his employees was operating the vehicle at the time of the loss, that insured’s policy is primary; or (2) if someone other than that insured was operating the vehicle at the time of the loss, that insured’s policy is excess.
This is all very simple if one posits, as the Legislature did, just one insured who is in the automobile business. The moment one admits the possibility that subdivision (a) applies although more than one insured is in the automobile business, it becomes apparent that substantial rewriting of subdivision (a) and particularly of its paragraph (1) of section 11580.9 becomes necessary. To begin with, the introductory language to subdivision (a) must be rewritten as if the italicized words “or more” were part of the statute: “Where two or more policies . . . apply to the same motor vehicle . . . and one or more of such policies affords coverage to a named insured engaged in the business of selling, . . .” At this point, I merely note the obvious problems attendant upon judicial attempts to smuggle the words “or more” into the very sentence of a statute in which the Legislature has demonstrated its ability to use the words “or more” when it wants to.
Inserting “or more” into the first sentence of subdivision (a) is, however, just the beginning of the majority’s problems. To reach the result which it evidently deems just, it must also make changes—additions if you will—to paragraph (1) of subdivision (a). The previous change—“or more”—established that we could be dealing with a situation involving more than one insured in the automobile business. The court must then turn to the situation where one of these insured’s drives a vehicle with the permission of another insured who is also in the business. To this end, it rewrites paragraph (1) of subdivision (a)—again I italicize the addition: “If. . . the motor vehicle is being operated by any person engaged in any of such businesses . . . the insurance afforded by the policy issued to the person engaged in such business who operated the vehicle shall be primary, . . Otherwise, of course, since both are in the automobile business, it would not be clear that it is the driver’s and not the owner’s policy that is to be primary.
The rewriting job becomes even more complex if the driver is not, as here, a named insured who is in the automobile business, but one of his employees. Paragraph (1) must therefore be rewritten as follows: “If. . . the motor vehicle is being operated by any person engaged in any of such businesses, or by his employee or agent, the insurance afforded by the *492policy issued to the person engaged in such business who operated the vehicle or whose employee or agent operated the vehicle shall be primary,
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The majority concedes that all this is only true if there is no master-servant or principal-agent relationship between the driver and the insured who is the owner of the vehicle. (See majority opn., fn. 3.) I gather that if Roesie had been found to have driven the vehicle as the employee of Peck, the majority would let the judgment stand. This, then, requires a further rewriting job of paragraph (1) of subdivision (a). Presumably, in order to take this concession into account, the paragraph should really read as follows: “If. . . the motor vehicle is being operated by any person engaged in any of such businesses, or by his employee or agent, the insurance afforded by the policy issued to the person engaged in such business who operated the vehicle or whose employee or agent operated the vehicle shall be primary, . . . unless the operator operated the vehicle as agent or servant of the owner of the vehicle. . . .”
In brief, I would leave the job of rewriting the section to the Legislature. Therefore, I dissent.
The petition for a rehearing was denied November 7, 1978, and the opinion was modified to read as printed above. Kaus, P. J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted. Respondent’s petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied December 20, 1978. Bird, C. J., and Mosk, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.