Arado v. Central Nat. Ins. Co. of Omaha
| Decision Date | 23 August 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 7292,7292 |
| Citation | 337 So.2d 253 |
| Parties | Linda ARADO and Willard Arado v. The CENTRAL NATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY OF OMAHA et al. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Marvin C. Grodsky, New Orleans, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Henry Leon Sarpy, Porteous, Toledano, Hainkel & Johnson, New Orleans, for Central Nat. Ins. Co. of Omaha.
Frank A. Taylor, Orlando, Fla., for Marvin Vann and Joy Vann.
E. Kelleher Simon, Murphy & Simon, New Orleans, for Allstate Ins. Co.
Before REDMANN, BOUTALL and SCHOTT, JJ.
A father and daughter, residents of Missouri, appeal from a judgment which denied his claim for medical expenses and awarded her $200,000 against a now-major tortfeasor (and, to its 'unstacked' $10,000 limits, the tortfeasor's insurer) but denied recovery against the tortfeasor's father, a resident of Florida, and against plaintiff's own uninsured motorist coverage insurer. We reverse the denial of the medical expense claim against the tortfeasor and otherwise affirm.
At issue are: the Missouri father's entitlement to recover for tort-caused medical expenses he paid for his then comatose 20-year-old but once-married daughter; the Florida father's liability for his 17-year-old daughter's tort; 'stacking' of defendant insurer's liability coverages under a three-car policy; liability of both plaintiff's own and defendants' insurers under uninsured motorist coverages; and quantum.
Plaintiff father is a resident of Missouri. We need not decide whether plaintiff daughter remained an unemancipated minor under Missouri law (see Nelson v. Browning, Mo.1965, 391 S.W.2d 881) despite her marriage (terminated by her husband's death). Her comatose state and need made her father legally liable for her support even if a major, Fower v. Fower Estate, Mo.1970, 448 S.W.2d 585; compare La.C.C. 229. The father is therefore legally subrogated, C.C. 2161(3), to the claim of the daughter. Alternatively, by consenting to have him sue for those expenses in the same action in which she herself sued, the daughter conventionally subrogated him.
Defendant father is a resident of Florida. It is not shown that he has ever been in Louisiana personally or through his 17-year-old runaway daughter as an agent. Thus the Louisiana law of paternal responsibility, C.C. 2318, would be of doubtful application for lack of territorial jurisdiction over the father. (But see Watkins v. Cupit, La.App.1961, 130 So.2d 720; Note, 36 Tulane L.Rev. 339). It is in any case doubtful that La.C.C. 2318 would make this father liable, since this Florida runaway had many weeks earlier quit residing with the father. She had often left home for extended periods without permission since age 14 and, despite two juvenile court proceedings, had long escaped her father's control. Under Florida law, an 'emancipation' might therefore have occurred so that the father might not even be liable for her support; see Ison v. Florida Sanitorium and Ben. Assn., Fla.App.1974, 302 So.2d 200.
The father could nevertheless be liable under Florida law if he had signed an application by his under-18 daughter for a Florida driver's license, Fla.Stat. § 322.09(3), or if he were the owner-lender of the vehicle she drove injuriously, Southern Cotton Oil Co. v. Anderson, 1920, 80 Fla. 441, 86 So. 629. We cannot, however, reverse the trial judge's refusal to infer either of these circumstances from the evidence in the record. Neither driver's license (much less application) nor car title is in evidence. On ownership, the testimony is that the father loaned the daughter the few hundred dollars to buy the used car to be titled in her name (though he added it to his insurance policy) and her mother assisted her in filling out the registration papers. On the driver's license, the daughter testified she had had one (which may be doubted; she said she threw it away because it became blood-soaked in the accident while in another passenger's possession); but she did not testify it was a Florida license, and her frequent periods away from home might have enabled her to get one elsewhere. There was no testimony relative to any application for license, and it appears possible that even a Florida license could have been obtained on the signature of some other person if the daughter showed she did not live with her parents.
We therefore affirm the holding that defendant father is not liable.
The tortfeasor was insured under a single policy which charged a separately stated premium for Florida's statutorily-required $10,000 liability coverage for each of three automobiles. Plaintiffs compare this coverage to statutorily-required uninsured motorist coverage, and argue that, as with the latter, the statutorily-required liability coverage should be 'stacked' so that the tortfeasor's insurer should be liable for the sum of the limits for each of the three cars. But liability coverage is unlike uninsured motorist coverage. The law requires that uninsured motorist coverage provide the full statutory coverage to an insured irrespective of the number of cars owned or insured, so that, unless coverage is stacked, the insured would get nothing for the additional premium charged for additional cars. Liability coverage, on the contrary, needs not and does not protect against liability from using an owned but uninsured second car, and therefore the insured does get additional insurance when he pays the additional premium charged for additional cars. The reasoning supporting stacking of uninsured motorist coverage is therefore inapplicable to liability coverage.
Defendant daughter's uninsured motorist coverage protects, besides the named insured's family, only persons 'occupying an insured automobile,' i.e., an automobile insured under the policy in question: and it is only because plaintiff...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Vallot v. Camco, Inc.
...against passing.4 Plaintiff cites Stanley v. Wiley, 325 So.2d 661 (La. App. 3rd Cir. 1975) and Arado v. Central National Insurance Company of Omaha, 337 So.2d 253 (La. App. 4th Cir. 1976), writ denied 339 So.2d 19. Defendant cites Dupas v. City of New Orleans, 361 So.2d 911 (La. App. 4th Ci......
-
Jones v. MFA Mut. Ins. Co.
...See Hurston v. Dufour, 292 So.2d 733 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1974), writ denied, 295 So.2d 178 (La.1974); Arado v. Central National Insurance Company of Omaha, 337 So.2d 253 (La.App. 4 Cir. 1976), application not considered, 339 So.2d 19 The trial court also found that the second paragraph of polic......
-
Breaux v. Government Emp. Ins. Co.
... ... In contending otherwise, plaintiffs and GEICO rely upon Arado v. Central National Insurance Company of Omaha, 337 So.2d 253 (La.App. 4th ... ...
-
Cooks v. Rental Service Corp.
...caused the damage. Thus, the plaintiffs could not cumulate available policy limits. Similarly, in Arado v. Central National Insurance Company of Omaha, 337 So.2d 253 (La.App. 4 Cir.), writ not considered, 339 So.2d 19 (La.1976), one policy insured three vehicles. One insured vehicle was inv......