Court Opinion

ID: 9778377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:02:17.357157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:08.023148
License: Public Domain

STEPHENSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which permits “stacking.”
It is my view that the basic premise of permitting any “stacking” is not logical, nor is it in accord with what I consider to be the plain intent of the General Assembly as reflected in KRS 304.20-020. As I read the statute, the General Assembly intended that “each policy” contain the minimum protection of $10,000 for accidents involving uninsured motorists and did not contemplate our court indulging in intellectual gymnastics to justify increasing this minimum in the absence of a contract provision increasing this coverage by the payment of additional premiums.
The “stacking” authorized in the majority opinion is based on our holding in Siddons.
*560In Siddons there were two separate policies, and it was reasoned that the requirement of the statute that each policy provide for the uninsured motorist coverage justified “stacking.” Although only one premium was paid, the insurance company was entitled to collect two premiums. Thus the real basis of Siddons is recovery for each premium, and this rationale is carried over to the present case. The majority opinion is, in my view, a logical extension of Siddons. If the rationale of “stacking” is to be based on the number of premiums paid for multiple automobile ownership, then I cannot see any significant difference between separate policies on each automobile and all automobiles in one policy if the operative factor is the number of premiums. It seems to me that the premium charged in the insurance contract for each automobile is that there is increased exposure to liability. This, to me, is a more persuasive argument than the strained interpretation that each premium entitles the “named insured” to pyramid, in the event of an accident. The majority opinion found that it was necessary to prowl around in the statute and come up with the “named insured” principle to avoid “stacking” sixty-three times. I cannot believe the General Assembly intended more than the minimum coverage, $10,000 for each accident involving an individual, and did not contemplate that the fortuitous circumstance of ownership and coverage of multiple vehicles would result in more than the minimum coverage in the insurance contract.
For example, “A”, the head of a household and the “named insured,” owns five automobiles, all covered in one policy and premiums paid for the minimum on each automobile. Improbable though it may be, on a given day “A” and four members of his family are operating the five automobiles and all five are involved in serious accidents, each one with uninsured motorists. Following the reasoning of the majority opinion, the other four members of the family can each recover $10,000 for a total of $40,000. “A” is permitted to stack and recover $50,000 for a grand total of $90,000. Premiums were paid only for $50,000, and no premium was paid for the additional $40,000. How would this situation logically be applied to the “paid the premium” reasoning? It is obvious to me that the “paid the premium” reasoning is faulty in the first place.
I have read Professor Keeton’s principle of honoring reasonable expectations and fail to see how this treatise supports the reasoning in the Alabama opinion or the majority opinion. The principle is based on the premise that policy language will be construed as laymen would understand it. I am firmly convinced that the average layman would clearly understand that the payment of an uninsured motorist premium for each vehicle was reasonable and clearly understandable and such provisions were not contemplated by Professor Keeton in his treatise as being ambiguous and obscure.
Sturdy, relied upon the majority opinion, recites the “general principles of indemnity that amounts of premiums are based on amounts of liability” to justify “stacking.” I agree with this general principle; however, the example given above illustrates that this principle militates against the principle of “stacking.”
I would overrule Siddons, Allstate, and Zurich and deny “stacking” in all cases.