Continental Nat. Indem. Co. v. Fields

• Decision Date: 21 October 2005
• Docket Number: 1040379.
• Citation: 926 So.2d 1033
• Parties: CONTINENTAL NATIONAL INDEMNITY COMPANY and Progressive Specialty Insurance Company v. Betty FIELDS, as personal representative of the estate of Lisa Gale Tamms, deceased.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

926 So.2d 1033

CONTINENTAL NATIONAL INDEMNITY COMPANY and Progressive Specialty Insurance Company v. Betty FIELDS, as personal representative of the estate of Lisa Gale Tamms, deceased.

1040379.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

October 21, 2005.

Edward E. Wilson, Jr., of Lanier Ford Shaver & Payne, P.C., Huntsville, for appellant Continental National Indemnity Company.

R. Larry Bradford and Justin Lamb of Bradford Law Firm, P.C., Vestavia Hills, for appellant Progressive Specialty Insurance Company.

D. Milburn Gross, Jr., of Ables, Baxter, Parker & Hall, P.C., Huntsville, for appellee.

NABERS, Chief Justice.

Continental National Indemnity Company and Progressive Specialty Insurance Company appeal by permission, pursuant to Rule 5, Ala.R.App.P., from the denial of a motion for a summary judgment they filed in an action brought by Betty Fields, as personal representative of the estate of Lisa Gale Tamms, deceased, to recover uninsured/underinsured motorist ("UM") benefits. We reverse the order denying the summary judgment and remand the case.

Facts

On May 14, 2001, Tamms was injured in an automobile accident when her vehicle was allegedly struck by a vehicle driven by Doyle Coultas, an uninsured motorist. In November 2002, Tamms died from a cause unrelated to the automobile accident. On May 14, 2003, Fields, as personal representative of Tamms's estate, sued Continental and Progressive to recover UM benefits for injuries Tamms sustained in the 2001 accident.¹ Tamms herself did not file an action based on the 2001 accident before she died.

At trial, Continental and Progressive filed a motion for a summary judgment on the ground that Tamms's tort cause of action against the uninsured motorist did not survive her death, and, thus, her estate could not establish that it was "legally entitled to recover" against Coultas as required by Alabama's uninsured-motorist statute, § 32-7-23, Ala.Code 1975, under the rationale of this Court's recent holding in Ex parte Carlton, 867 So.2d 332 (Ala. 2003). The trial court denied Continental and Progressive's motion for a summary judgment and certified the denial of the motion for an interlocutory appeal. This Court granted the petition for permission to appeal.

Standard of Review

An order granting or denying a summary judgment is reviewed de novo, applying the same standard as the trial court applied. American Gen. Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Underwood, 886 So.2d 807, 811 (Ala.2004). In addition, "[t]his court reviews de novo a trial court's interpretation of a statute, because only a question of law is presented." Scott Bridge Co. v. Wright, 883 So.2d 1221, 1223 (Ala.2003). Where, as here, the facts of a case are essentially undisputed, this Court must determine whether the trial court misapplied the law to the undisputed facts, applying a de novo standard of review. Carter v. City of Haleyville, 669 So.2d 812, 815 (Ala. 1995). Here, in reviewing the denial of a summary judgment when the facts are undisputed, we review de novo the trial court's interpretation of statutory language and our previous caselaw on a controlling question of law.

Issue

The controlling question of law before this Court, as stated by the circuit court in its Rule 5(a), Ala.R.App.P., certification, is as follows:

"Whether Ala.Code [1975,] § 6-5-462[,] and the interpretation by the Supreme Court of Alabama in Ex parte Carlton, 867 So.2d 332 (Ala.2003)[,] of the requirement in Ala.Code [1975,] § 32-7-23(a)[,] that persons insured thereunder be `legally entitled to recover damages' bar the Estate of a deceased from maintaining an action for uninsured motorists (UM) benefits against uninsured motorists carriers when the decedent filed no personal injury action against the alleged tortfeasor prior to her death from an unrelated cause."

We hold that Fields, as personal representative of Tamms's estate, cannot recover UM benefits under the Continental policy or the Progressive policy because she cannot establish that the estate is "legally entitled to recover damages" against the uninsured motorist,² a condition precedent to the recovery of UM benefits under Alabama's uninsured-motorist statute.

Analysis

In answering the controlling question of law presented by this case, we focus, as we did in Carlton, on the plain and unambiguous language of Alabama's uninsured-motorist statute. The statute provides, in pertinent part:

"No automobile liability or motor vehicle liability policy insuring against loss resulting from liability imposed by law for bodily injury or death suffered by any person arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle shall be delivered ... unless coverage is provided ..., in limits for bodily injury or death ... for the protection of persons insured thereunder who are legally entitled to recover damages from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles because of bodily injury, sickness or disease, including death, resulting therefrom...."

Ala.Code 1975, § 32-7-23 (emphasis added).

In Carlton, this Court stated that the phrase "legally entitled to recover" in the uninsured-motorist statute means that "`[i]n a direct action by the insured against the insurer, the insured has the burden of proving ... that the other motorist was uninsured, legally liable for damage to the insured, and the amount of this liability.'" Carlton, 867 So.2d at 334 (quoting State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Griffin, 51 Ala.App. 426, 431, 286 So.2d 302, 306 (1973)) (emphasis added). In Carlton, this Court addressed the issue whether an insured was legally entitled to recover UM benefits under the uninsured-motorist statute when the uninsured motorist had a complete defense, unrelated to any wrongdoing by the uninsured motorist, to the insured's personal-injury claim. This Court concluded that an employee, injured in a motor-vehicle accident while acting in the scope of his employment, who was barred by the exclusivity-of-remedy provision in the Workers' Compensation Act from recovering against a co-employee based on negligence, was not entitled to UM benefits. 867 So.2d at 338.

With our holding in Carlton, we overruled a series of cases in which we had created exceptions to the uninsured-motorist statute and had allowed the recovery of UM benefits even when the uninsured motorist had a defense to recovery and the insured was not "legally entitled to recover damages" from the uninsured motorist as required by the statute.

Carlton explicitly overruled State Farm Automobile Insurance Co. v. Baldwin, 470 So.2d 1230 (Ala.1985) (holding that a member of the armed services may recover UM benefits for injuries sustained in a collision with a uninsured vehicle driven by an civil employee of the federal government regardless of the fact that Baldwin was otherwise prohibited from recovering against the uninsured motorist as a result of governmental immunity); State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Jeffers, 686 So.2d 248 (Ala.1996) (holding that a citizen may recover UM benefits for injuries sustained in a collision with a police vehicle despite the fact that the vehicle was covered by an insurance policy under the rationale that because the police officer driver was protected from liability by substantive immunity, he was, in effect, uninsured); and Hogan v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 730 So.2d 1157 (Ala.1998)(holding that a passenger may recover UM benefits for injuries sustained in an automobile accident where she was precluded from suing the negligent driver, who was insured, under Alabama's guest statute).

Our decision in Carlton was based on the rationale that Carlton was not "legally entitled to recover" under the uninsured-motorist statute because Carlton's cause of action was barred by the Workers' Compensation Act, which provided the exclusive remedy. Carlton, 867 So.2d at 338. We held that Carlton could not carry his burden of proof under the uninsured-motorist statute; Carlton could not prove that his co-employee was legally liable to him for damages because the co-employee had a defense provided by the exclusivity-of-remedy provision in the Workers' Compensation Act. 867 So.2d at 338. In so holding, this Court quoted with approval Justice Lyons's dissent in Hogan:

"`I believe that whether an insured is "legally entitled to recover" depends entirely on the merits of the insured's claim against a tortfeasor under the laws of the state. However, today's decision, like Baldwin and Jeffers, has construed that phrase to mean "legally entitled to recover but for a defense that does not arise out of any wrongful conduct of the insured," a defense such as immunity or an insured's status as a guest.'"

867 So.2d at 337. In overruling Hogan, Baldwin, and Jeffers, this Court rejected the judicial altering of the clear meaning of the uninsured-motorist statute and "return[ed] to the point from which this Court never should have departed — the language of the statute." 867 So.2d at 337.

We base our decision in the present case on the plain language of Ala.Code 1975, § 32-7-23, and the clearly stated rationale in Carlton. Under Carlton, Fields's claim against Continental and Progressive depends entirely on the merits of the claim against Coultas, the uninsured motorist. In Carlton, the exclusivity-of-remedy provision in the Workers' Compensation Act prevented Carlton from proceeding against the negligent uninsured motorist because the provision precluded any other recovery and provided a defense for the negligent co-employee. In the same manner, the laws of this State, which provide that a tort action does not survive the death of the injured party, preclude Fields, the personal representative of Tamms's estate, from proceeding against the allegedly negligent uninsured motorist.

As a general rule, causes of action in tort do not survive in favor of the personal representative of the deceased. Wynn v. Tallapoosa County Bank, 168 Ala. 469, 490, 53 So. 228, 237 (1910)...