Court Opinion

ID: 9515079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:53:37.701115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:24.715952
License: Public Domain

ZINTER, Justice
(concurring in result).
[¶ 28.] I agree that Westphal controls this appeal, and Westphal invalidates Progressive’s policy clauses that prohibit the stacking of coverage. I concur in result only because I part company with the Court’s conclusion that our decisions since Westphal continue to reflect a public policy against “anti-stacking” exclusions in uninsured motorist insurance policies. In my view, Progressive correctly points out that this Court’s more recent decisions reflect a public policy permitting such exclusions as long as the statutorily required minimum uninsured motorist coverage is provided. Nevertheless, I concur in result because Westphal remains the law of this State, and that decision invalidates Progressive’s anti-stacking exclusions.
[¶ 29.] There is no dispute that “[t]he Legislature has clearly enunciated a public policy of requiring insurers to provide uninsured motorist coverage to every insured in the state.” Supra ¶ 22. Therefore, I agree that, to the extent that Progressive’s exclusionary clauses “purport[] to eliminate an insurance company’s liabili*60ty under an uninsured motorist provision,” they violate the public policy as expressed in Westphal Id.
[¶ 30.] However, I disagree with the Court’s conclusion that anti-stacking provisions also violate public policy as expressed in “our precedent since Westphal. ...” Supra n. 2 and ¶ 15. On the contrary, Progressive presents a colorable case that public policy, as expressed in our decisions after Westphal, permits anti-stacking provisions as long as the insured is provided the minimum limits of coverage.
[¶ 31.] A state’s public policy “is not static, but may change as the relevant factual situation and the thinking of the times change.” American Home Assurance Co. v. Cohen, 815 F.Supp. 365, 370 (W.D.Wash.1993) (quoting Brown v. Snohomish County Physicians Corp., 120 Wash.2d 747, 845 P.2d 334, 338 (1993)). We have also recognized “[t]hat a policy [is] reflected by the established trend ... of the decisions of the courts.... ” Bartron v. Codington County, 68 S.D. 309, 323, 2 N.W.2d 337, 343-44 (1942). Consequently, Progressive correctly argues that we must examine our more recent decisions reflecting the public policy underlying the uninsured motorist statutes.
[¶ 32.] This Court’s decisions after Westphal reflect that the uninsured motorist statutes are not intended to provide the insured with a full recovery for the amount of actual loss when that loss exceeds the statutorily required coverage. Instead our more recent decisions indicate that:
The purpose of the uninsured motorist statutes is to provide the same insurance protection to the insured party who is injured by an uninsured or unknown motorist that would have been available to [the insured] had [the insured] been injured as a result of the negligence of a motorist covered by the minimum amount of liability insurance.
Canal Ins. Co. v. Abraham, 1999 SD 90, ¶ 29, 598 N.W.2d 512, 519 (emphasis added) (quoting American Family Mut. Ins. Co. v. Merrill, 454 N.W.2d 555, 559 (S.D.1990) (quoting Clark v. Regent Ins. Co., 270 N.W.2d 26, 29 (S.D.1978))). Therefore, this Court’s more recent pronouncements have specifically indicated, in different contexts, that deductions for other coverage are permitted in uninsured/un-derinsured motorist policies. For example, this Court has stated that these insurance premiums are paid for a guaranteed “minimum recovery. The fact that premiums are paid for the coverage is not the conclusive determination that the insured is entitled to the full amount of coverage without deduction.” Nickerson, 2000 SD 121, ¶ 15, 616 N.W.2d at 471 (emphasis added). More to the point, Cunningham specifically declined to extend Westphal beyond its particular facts, holding that “we see nothing in SDCL 58-11-9 which requires the stacking of the policy coverages for two separate vehicles. The insureds got exactly what the policy said they would.” Id., 90 S.D. at 533, 243 N.W.2d at 174.
[¶ 33.] Under these post -Westphal pronouncements, Progressive correctly points out that we have not held that the uninsured coverage statute (SDCL 58-11-9) requires stacking. Indeed, there is nothing in the language of SDCL 58-11-9 that even suggests the existence of a public policy requiring stacking. Therefore, if public policy does not require stacking, it is difficult to argue that public policy prohibits anti-stacking contracts of insurance. As we noted in Bartron:
Until firmly and solemnly convinced that an existent public policy is clearly revealed, a court is not warranted in applying the principle under consideration. It has been well said, “that the right of *61private contract is no small part of the liberty of the citizen, and that the usual and most important function of courts of justice is rather to maintain and enforce contracts than to enable parties thereto to escape from their obligation on the pretext of public policy, unless it clearly appear that they contravene public right or the public welfare.”
Id., 68 S.D. at 323, 2 N.W.2d at 344 (quoting Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern Ry. Co. v. Voigt, 176 U.S. 498, 505, 20 S.Ct. 385, 387, 44 L.Ed. 560, 565 (1900)).
[¶ 34.] Were there any lingering doubt about this Court’s current pronouncements on this subject, Union Ins. Co. clearly held that stacking could be prohibited when it would result in a recovery in excess of the statutory amount set forth in SDCL 58-11-9. Id., 454 N.W.2d at 739-40. This Court specifically noted that a non-aggregation (anti-stacking) clause could be considered in determining that Union’s limits of liability did not exceed the statutory amount. Id. at n. 3. This Court reasoned that a clause limiting liability to the statutory amount required by uninsured motorist statutes was permitted because it satisfied the legislative policy expressed in the statute. Id. at 739-40.
[¶ 35.] Thus, a number of our decisions after Westphal have upheld anti-stacking provisions, and none have concluded that anti-stacking provisions violate public policy. Id.; see also Cunningham, 90 S.D. at 532, 243 N.W.2d at 173 (plaintiffs could not stack the uninsured motorist limits of one vehicle onto the limits of the vehicle in which their decedents were actually riding when the accident occurred); Nickerson, 2000 SD 121, 616 N.W.2d 468 (passenger could not recover excess UIM benefits from her insurer because she had already recovered a total of $100,000 from the tortfeasor and the primary UIM carrier, an amount that equaled the policy limit on her excess UIM coverage).
[¶ 36.] In light of our recent precedent, I cannot join the majority’s conclusion that “our precedent since Westphal compelfs]” the conclusion that anti-stacking provisions violate public policy, supra n. 2, or that “[t]his Court’s ... subsequent decisions” allow the insured to stack coverage. Supra ¶ 15. On the contrary, were we to review Progressive’s anti-stacking provisions based only upon our decisions since Westphal, we would most likely reach a different result.
[¶ 37.] Nevertheless, I concur in result because of the strength and breadth of the Westphal language, the substantial legislative activity restricting stacking in closely related areas while not restricting it in Westphal scenarios, and the fact that the Legislature has failed to abrogate West-phal despite its active involvement in this area for thirty years.
[¶ 38.] In my view, the analysis of Progressive’s anti-stacking clauses begins and ends with Westphal. Initially, it must be noted that Westphal’s analysis was not restricted to a review of “other insurance” clauses. The clause construed included “other insurance” and “anti-stacking” concepts.3 That conclusion is evident from the Westphal holding:
*62[T]hat ‘other insurance’ provisions, whether in the form of a ‘pro rata,’ ‘excess insurance,’ ‘excess-escape,’ or other similar clause, are invalid as a part of uninsured motorist protection, on the ground that the statute requiring every liability policy to provide this type of protection will not permit the insurer to provide in any way that the coverage will not apply where other insurance is also ‘available,’ despite the fact that the insured may thus be put in a better position than he would be in if the other motorist were properly insured.
Westphal, 87 S.D. at 408, 209 N.W.2d at 557 (emphasis added).
[¶ 39.] Thus, this broad language of Westphal applies to both of the Progressive clauses. Moreover, were there any question about the strength of that holding, it must be remembered that it has been repeatedly reaffirmed. Supra ¶ 12. It must finally be remembered that West-phal specifically rejects the rule advocated by Progressive here; i.e. the notion:
[T]hat the design and purpose of uninsured motorist statutes are to provide protection only up to the minimum statutory limits for bodily injuries, and not to provide the insured with greater insurance protection than would have been available had he been injured by an insured motorist, and have held that such ‘other insurance’ provisions are valid where they do not reduce coverage below the minimum statutory limits.
Id., 87 S.D. at 408, 209 N.W.2d at 557-58. Westphal also observed that:
Nowhere in the statute does the legislature attempt to fix any maximum amount of recovery less than the amount of the loss. The lack of pro ration language in the statute is conspicuous and can only weigh in favor of an inference of allowing stacking recovery.
Id., 87 S.D. at 410, 209 N.W.2d at 559 (emphasis added).
[¶ 40.] Although these pronouncements are in direct conflict with this Court’s more "recent precedent, Westphal’s fundamental precepts have not been abrogated despite thirty years of legislative activity restricting stacking in this area. Consequently, until changed by the Legislature, Westphal remains the law of the State, and its broad language invalidates Progressive’s “other insurance” and “anti-stacking” provisions.
[¶ 41.] I therefore concur in result on Issue 1 and concur on Issue 2.
[¶ 42.] KONENKAMP, Justice, joins this special writing.

. The Westphal provision stated:
Other Insurance: With respect to bodily injury to an insured while occupying an automobile not owned by the principal named insured, the insurance under this endorsement shall apply only as excess insurance over any other similar insurance available to such insured and applicable to such automobile as primary insurance, and this insurance shall then apply only in the amount by which the limit of liability for this coverage exceeds the applicable limit of liability of such other insurance.
Id., 87 S.D. at 406, 209 N.W.2d at 556 (emphasis added).