Kentucky Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Mason

• Decision Date: 01 February 1980
• Citation: 600 S.W.2d 483
• Parties: KENTUCKY FARM BUREAU MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. William Steve MASON, Appellee.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

Page 483

600 S.W.2d 483

KENTUCKY FARM BUREAU MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. William Steve MASON, Appellee.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Feb. 1, 1980.

Rehearing Denied March 14, 1980.

Discretionary Review Denied July 8, 1980.

Francis T. Goheen, Paducah, for appellant.

G. David Sparks, Williams, Housman & Sparks, Paducah, for appellee.

Before GANT, VANCE and WINTERSHEIMER, JJ.

VANCE, Judge.

The question is whether a person injured in a highway collision while in the act of pushing a motorcycle is entitled to recover basic reparation benefits under the Motor Vehicle Reparations Act.

The facts are not in dispute. On July 8, 1976, appellee was injured when he was struck by a motor vehicle driven by William R. Pedigo. Pedigo was insured by appellant Kentucky Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company. At the time of his injury appellee was walking beside and pushing a motorcycle on the highway. He claimed basic reparation benefits on the ground that he was a pedestrian at the time of injury. Both parties moved for summary judgment and the court granted summary judgment to appellee on the issue of entitlement to basic reparation benefits.

Appellant asserts and appellee is not entitled to basic reparation benefits because (1) appellee was not a pedestrian, and (2) recovery is precluded by KRS 304.39-040(3).

KRS 304.39-050(1) provides:

The basic reparation insurance applicable to bodily injury to which this subtitle applies is the security covering the vehicle occupied by the injured person at the time of the accident or, if the injured person is a pedestrian, the security covering the vehicle which struck such pedestrian. . . .

The statute in effect at the time of the accident defined a pedestrian as follows:

A pedestrian, as used herein, means any person who is not an operator or user of a motor vehicle at the time his injury occurs. Kentucky Acts 1974, Chapter 385, Section 5(1).

It follows that appellee was a pedestrian unless, at the time of injury, he was either an operator or user of the motorcycle. The suffixes "er" and "or" ordinarily carry the meaning "one who". Thus, in the dictionary sense, an operator is one who operates and a user is one who uses.

Many statutes contain a definition section and words used in the statute which are specifically defined by the statute must be given the meaning prescribed by the legislature in construing the statute. Thus, while a "user" would ordinarily be one who uses, the word "user" was defined in the statute in effect at the time of the accident to mean a person who is a basic reparation insured if such person had not rejected the limitation upon his tort rights as provided by the act. KRS 304.39-020(14).

The definition of user was amended in 1978 to mean any person who resides in a household in which any person owns or maintains a motor vehicle. Neither the original nor the amended statutory definitions of the word "user" relate in any degree to actual use. We must hold that appellee was not a "user" of the motorcycle as that word is defined in the statute under consideration. See Dixon v. Cowles, Ky.App., 562 S.W.2d 639 (1977).

The term "operator" was not specifically defined in the act. In a narrow sense it might be said that the act of pushing a motorcycle is an operation of the vehicle. We do not accept that premise in the interpretation of the statute in question for a number of reasons.

The word "operator" is used in the statute to define a pedestrian by the process of...