TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY, A FOREIGN CORPORATION AUTHORIZED TO DO BUSINESS IN THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
EUGENE PAC, APPELLEE

Fla. 2d DCA | 1976-09-08
No. 75-380
GRIMES and SCHEB, JJ., concur., HOBSON, A. C. J., dissents without opinion.
337 So. 2d 397 Florida District Court of Appeal, Second District (1976) Negative Treatment
Cited by 47 cases

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Synopsis

Travelers Insurance appealed a trial court's ruling that an employee injured while driving his employer's fleet vehicle could "stack" uninsured motorist coverage across all 15 vehicles in the policy. The Second District Court of Appeal reversed, holding that stacking is available only to named insureds and their household members, not to employees or guests who become insureds merely by occupying an insured vehicle.


Holding

Stacking of uninsured motorist coverage is available only to named insureds, their spouses, and household relatives who are covered regardless of which vehicle they occupy. Employees or guests who become insureds solely by occupying an insured vehicle cannot stack coverage, as they have no relationship with other vehicles and those coverages should not inure to their benefit.


Headnotes

[1] Uninsured motorist coverage under a policy is personal to the named insured who paid the premium and does not extend to a permissive user of the vehicle unless explicitly…

[2] A permissive user of a vehicle, who has not paid a premium for uninsured motorist coverage, cannot "stack" the uninsured motorist coverage of the vehicle owner's policy w…

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Key Quotes

“The total uninsured motorist coverage which the insured has purchased for himself and his family regardless of the number of vehicles covered by his auto liability policy inures to him or any member of his family when injured by an uninsured motorist.”

Establishes the general principle of stacking for named insureds and their families, as stated in Tucker v. Government Employees Insurance Co.

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Facts & Procedural History

Eugene Pac, an employee of Frank Carroll Oil Co., was injured by an uninsured motorist while operating one of his employer's vehicles. Frank Carroll O…

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Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

This case presents the question of whether “stacking” of uninsured motorist coverage is available to a person who achieves his status as an insured by driving his employer’s vehicle.

Appellee Pac, an employee of Frank Carroll Oil Co., was injured by a uninsured motorist while operating his employer’s vehicle. At the time of the accident, Frank Carroll Oil Co. was one of the named insureds under a fleet automobile liability insurance policy issued by appellant Travelers Insurance Co. (Travelers) which provided, among other things, uninsured motorist coverage for the motor vehicle involved in the accident in the amount of $10,000 for each person and $20,000 for each accident. The policy also provided the same uninsured motorist coverage for 14 additional vehicles, all of which were specifically identified in the policy and for which a separate premium was paid.

Travelers filed a declaratory judgment action to determine whether or not the appellee could aggregate or “stack” the uninsured motorist coverage provided under the policy on all 15 individual vehicles. The trial court ruled that appellee was entitled to stack the uninsured motorist coverage under the Travelers policy which, in effect, made the total coverage $150,000. Travelers appeals this declaratory judgment. We reverse.

The parties have not cited, and we have not found, a Florida case dealing with “stacking” uninsured motorist coverages where the injured party was an insured only by virtue of occupying an insured vehicle. No contention is made that there is any policy provision authorizing an insured to aggregate or “stack” coverage; therefore, we must determine whether statutory or case law requires the result reached by the trial court.

The insurance policy at issue defines “insured” as:

(1) the named insured as stated in the policy (herein also referred to as the “principal named insured”) and any person designated as named insured in the schedule and, while residents of the same household, the spouse of any such named insured and relatives of either;

(2) any other person while occupying an insured automobile;

The entitlement of each of these two classes of insureds to uninsured motorist protection was distinguished in Mullis v. State Farm Mutual, Fla.1971, 252 So. 2d 229. There, the court held that the named insured, his spouse, and their relatives must be afforded uninsured motorist protection regardless of whether they are in an insured vehicle at the time of the accident. This is to be contrasted to persons who become an insured solely by riding in an insured vehicle. As the court pointed out, this second group is necessarily restricted to occupants of the insured vehicle for the purpose of coverage identification.

The case which gave rise to the concept of stacking is Tucker v. Government Employees Insurance Co., Fla.1978, 288 So. 2d 238. There, the court wrote:

The total uninsured motorist coverage which the insured has purchased for himself and his family regardless of the number of vehicles covered by his auto liability policy inures to him or any member of his family when injured by an uninsured motorist.

The Tucker opinion cites Mullis and we think the net effect of the language quoted above is that stacking is mandated only for those insureds in the first category outlined in Mullis. Stacking is derived from the presumption that when the named insured purchases uninsured motorist coverage on more than one automobile, he intends to buy extra protection for himself and his family, regardless of whether his injury occurs in any one of his insured vehicles or elsewhere.1 But there is no reason to apply this result to a guest or employee injured in an insured vehicle. That person has no relationship with any other insured vehicle and the coverage on the others should not inure to his benefit.

Cases outside of Florida are split on the issue of whether stacking is available to an occupant of a vehicle when the owner of that vehicle has multiple policies. In Blocker v. Aetna Casualty Co., 1975, 232 Pa.Super. 111, 332 A. 2d 476, the court could find no distinction between the two categories of insureds and held that stacking of uninsured motorist coverage was available to each. Cf., General Mutual Ins. Co. v. Gilmore, 1975, 294 Ala. 546, 319 So. 2d 675. We are more persuaded by Cunningham v. INA, 1972, 213 Va. 72, 189 S.E. 2d 832; Long v. U S F & G, N.D.Ala.1975, 396 F.Supp. 966; and Moomaw v. State Farm, S.D.W.Va.1974, 379 F.Supp. 697, each of which recognized the distinction outlined above and held that stacking is available only to insureds in the first category. In Cunningham, the leading case in this area, the court wrote: The purpose of uninsured motorist insurance is to provide compensation to the innocent victim of the uninsured motorist. The named insured in a policy receives coverage, and a contract benefit, for which he has paid a consideration. He seeks indemnity based on the payment of that premium and where he has paid separate premiums he is entitled to the additional coverages. However, this argument and reasoning does not apply to a permissive user of a vehicle who pays no premium and does not receive the broader uninsured motorist coverage of a named insured.

We think it is particularly noteworthy that the court in Long gave great weight to the Florida decisions in concluding that the issue presented here remains open in Florida, despite decisions mandating stacking under other circumstances.

The logic of these cases is especially compelling where the named insured is a large commercial venture. Here, 15 vehicles were involved, while in Cunningham, supra, the insured sought to stack coverage on over 4,000 vehicles. We can easily envision a situation in which stacking of coverage for an occupant would give the insurance company in return for a minimal premium a potential liability running into millions of dollars, and we do not think Tucker was ever intended to lead to that result.

Reversed.

GRIMES and SCHEB, JJ., concur. HOBSON, A. C. J., dissents without opinion.

. Since he is already covered regardless of his location when he is injured by an uninsured motorist, there would be no other reason to pay another premium for coverage on a second vehicle. On the other hand, since coverage is limited to occupancy in the insured vehicle under the second category, the extra premium paid on another vehicle provides coverage which would not otherwise be available under that category.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By (23 total)

  • …erson happens to be a beneficiary. Such other person’s policy is that person’s uninsured motorist coverage which that person, rather than the injured person, has purchased. The District Court of Appeal, Second District, in Travelers Ins. Co. v. Pac, 337 So. 2d 397 (Fla. 2 DCA 1976), quoted as follows from Cunningham v. INA, 213 Va. 72, 189 S.E. 2d 832 (1972), which we consider appropriate to construction of this statute. “The purpose of uninsured motorist insurance is to provide compensation to the innocent…
  • Am. States Ins. Co. v. Kelley, 446 So. 2d 1085 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984)
    …t was sought only because the claimant happened to be occupying an insured vehicle which rendered him a class two insured under Mullis v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 252 So. 2d 229 (Fla.1971). See also Travelers Insurance Co. v. Pac, 337 So. 2d 397 (Fla. 2d DCA 1976) and Marks v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 339 So. 2d 1123 (Fla. 3d DCA 1976). [*1086] In Mullis v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., supra, the Supreme Court held that there are two classes of insureds: class one, being the…
  • Lumbermens Mut. Cas. Co. v. Martin, 399 So. 2d 536 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981)
    …t preclude it as to coverage available only because the claimant is occupying an insured vehicle and is thus a so-called “class two” insured under Mullis v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., 252 So. 2d 229 (Fla.1971). Travelers Ins. Co. v. Pac, 337 So. 2d 397 (Fla.2d DCA 1976), cert. denied, 351 So. 2d 407 (Fla.1977); Marks v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 339 So. 2d 1123 (Fla.3d DCA 1976); Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Richendollar, 368 So. 2d 603 (Fla.2d DCA 1979). Citing Pac, Marks, and Richendolla…

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