Court Opinion

ID: 9768235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:51:43.362913+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:38.458970
License: Public Domain

PUDLOWSKI, Judge,
dissenting.
I concur in part and respectfully dissent in part. I concur in the majority decision in affirming the trial court’s judgment against appellant, Millers Mutual. I respectfully dissent in the decision of the majority in reversing the trial court’s judgment relating to appellant, Royal Globe. I would affirm the trial court’s judgment.
I am compelled to follow Cameron Mut. Ins. Co. v. Madden, 533 S.W.2d 538 (Mo. banc 1976). The Supreme Court stated that: “[W]e hold that the public policy expressed in § 379.203 prohibits the insurer from limiting an insured to only one of the uninsured motorist coverages provided by a policy . . . .” Id. at 544-45.
The reliance of the majority upon the foreign cases, Lambert v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 331 So.2d 260, (Ala.1976) and Travelers Ins. Co. v. Pac, 337 So.2d 397 (Fla.App.1976) is misplaced.
Both cases attempt to distinguish the coverages under the uninsured motorist provision in one policy by defining the separate classes of insureds. Travelers differentiates the “named insured” from “any other person while occupying an insured vehicle.” Lambert also develops a similar distinction *663and concludes: “[H]ere, we are dealing with a limitation as to the amount of coverage to be afforded a passenger who is conceded by both sides to be an ‘insured’ under the omnibus clause of the uninsured motorist coverage. It [referring to another Alabama decision] was ‘coverage’ there and ‘stacking’ here.” 331 So.2d at 265 (emphasis added).
Our statute, § 379.203, RSMo 1978, does not provide either the distinction of classes nor the limitations. For this court to do otherwise is to legislate. If the legislature intended to classify and define “insured,” it surely would have. And to limit the uninsured would be contrary to the dictates of Cameron.
Therefore, I am constrained to follow the strict construction of the statute and Cameron. I would affirm the trial court’s judgment.