McCullough v. Wilson, 115,067
| Citation | 426 P.3d 494 |
| Decision Date | 07 September 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 115,067,115,067 |
| Parties | Michael MCCULLOUGH and Kenneth Risley, Appellees, v. Devin Lee WILSON, Appellant. |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
J. Franklin Hummer, of Shawnee Mission, argued the cause and was on the briefs for appellant.
Stephen W. Nichols, of The Nichols Law Firm, LLC, of Kansas City, Missouri, argued the cause, and Thomas R. Rehorn III, of Tomasic & Rehorn, of Kansas City, was with him on the brief for appellees.
A jury found Devin Wilson liable in tort for injuring Kenneth Risley in an automobile accident and awarded Risley, in addition to other compensation, the cost of his medical expenses resulting from the accident (hereafter "medical expenses"). Prior to filing this lawsuit 1 day short of 24 months after the accident, Risley had been paid for his medical expenses under the personal injury protection (PIP) coverage of his own automobile insurance policy. Wilson argued below that Risley had no right to sue for the medical expenses because, pursuant to K.S.A. 40-3113a(c), the cause of action for those medical expenses had been statutorily assigned to Risley's PIP insurance carrier 18 months after the accident. The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's determination that the assignment provision in K.S.A. 40-3113a(c) did not divest Risley of the right to recover his medical expenses from the tortfeasor. We granted Wilson's petition to review the Court of Appeals' decision. We affirm.
This case emanates from an automobile accident in which Wilson drove his vehicle at an excessive speed and crashed it into the rear of a vehicle containing a driver, Michael McCullough, and a passenger, Risley. McCullough and Risley filed a lawsuit against Wilson one day before the applicable two-year statute of limitations would expire, seeking monetary damages for lost wages, pain and suffering, and medical expenses.
Both McCullough and Risley possessed automobile insurance—McCullough with Farmers Insurance Company, Inc. (Farmers) and Risley with Automobile Club Insurance Exchange (AAA)—that paid PIP benefits to cover their respective medical expenses. Farmers sought and received reimbursement from Wilson's insurance carrier—Key Insurance Company (Key)—for the PIP benefits that Farmers had paid to McCullough. Inexplicably, AAA never requested reimbursement from Key for the $3,081 in PIP benefits it had paid to Risley.
Shortly before trial, Wilson filed a partial motion for summary judgment in which he argued for the first time that neither plaintiff could recover damages for their medical expenses. With respect to McCullough, Wilson asserted that he had paid the medical expenses, i.e., Farmers paid McCullough and Key reimbursed Farmers on Wilson's behalf. McCullough conceded the point that the tortfeasor, through the tortfeasor's insurer, had paid for McCullough's medical expenses.
With respect to Risley, Wilson argued that, 18 months after the accident, K.S.A. 40-3113a(c) had effected a statutory assignment of Risley's cause of action to recover his medical expenses to his PIP insurer, AAA. Under Wilson's theory, when Risley filed his lawsuit, only AAA had a viable claim to recover damages for Risley's medical expenses. Risley opposed the motion, maintaining that K.S.A. 40-3113a(c) does not operate as a true assignment of a victim's cause of action against the tortfeasor, and, therefore, he can recover the cost of his medical bills by suing the tortfeasor anytime within the two-year statute of limitations.
The district court opined that, regardless of whether Risley could actually be paid the amount of his medical expenses in this lawsuit, the plaintiffs were allowed to present the jury with evidence of those expenses to prove the extent of their personal injuries. Therefore, the district court took the assignment question under advisement and allowed the trial to proceed as scheduled.
The jury returned a verdict in the plaintiffs' favor. McCullough was awarded $8,732.71 in damages including $3,416.95 in past medical expenses; Risley was awarded $8,831 with $3,081 covering his medical expenses. Whereupon, Wilson renewed his challenge to the plaintiffs' medical expenses claims. Again, McCullough conceded that he had no further claim against Wilson for his medical expenses. Risley again contested Wilson's partial summary judgment motion, and the district court denied the motion as it related to Risley. The court ordered Wilson to pay Risley the entire jury award, explaining:
The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's ruling. McCullough v. Wilson , No. 115,067, 2017 WL 262026, at *10 (Kan. App. 2017) (unpublished opinion). The panel began its analysis by focusing on the Kansas Legislature's purpose in passing the Kansas Automobile Injury Reparations Act (KAIRA), K.S.A. 40-3101 et seq., which was to curtail personal injury litigation arising from automobile accidents by providing prompt compensation to injured persons. 2017 WL 262026, at *3. The KAIRA furthered this goal by requiring every vehicle owner to purchase insurance providing the owner with PIP benefits that pay, inter alia , medical expenses incurred in an automobile accident regardless of who was at fault. 2017 WL 262026, at *3. Because injured persons could potentially recover damages from liable tortfeasors that duplicate the "no-fault" PIP benefits paid by their own insurance company, the KAIRA gave PIP insurers subrogation rights, allowing the PIP insurer to be reimbursed from their insured's recovery from the tortfeasor, thereby avoiding double recovery by the plaintiff. To protect those subrogation rights in the event the PIP insured does not sue the tortfeasor, the insurer may bring its own claim against the tortfeasor 18 months after the accident, per K.S.A. 40-3113a(c). 2017 WL 262026, at *4. The panel concluded that K.S.A. 40-3113a(c) does not prevent an injured plaintiff from bringing his or her own claim, but instead "merely facilitates enforcement of the PIP carrier's subrogation rights." 2017 WL 262026, at *4, 9-10. As such, the Court of Appeals held Risley was entitled to collect all of his damages from the tortfeasor and his PIP insurer's subrogation rights from that judgment was a matter between the parties to the PIP insurance contract, i.e., Risley and AAA. 2017 WL 262026, at *10.
This court granted Wilson's petition for review.
Wilson's petition for review purports to raise seven issues with the Court of Appeals' decision, but we discern that they all are subparts of Wilson's core issue: whether the panel's interpretation of K.S.A. 40-3113a(c) (hereafter "subsection [c]") is erroneously at odds with the statute's plain language. Wilson claims that subsection (c)'s plain language unambiguously assigned Risley's cause of action for damages that were duplicative of his PIP benefits to his PIP insurer, AAA, as of the date that was 18 months after the accident resulting in the injuries. He contends that when Risley filed this lawsuit, he no longer possessed a cause of action in tort against Wilson for his medical expenses; that cause of action had been assigned, as a matter of law, to AAA. Therefore, Wilson asserts that any action to recover Risley's medical expenses from the tortfeasor, after that 18-month date, had to be brought by AAA, the PIP insurer.
This case involves our interpretation of the KAIRA. Interpretation of a statute is a question of law over which this court exercises unlimited review. Neighbor v. Westar Energy, Inc. , 301 Kan. 916, 918, 349 P.3d 469 (2015).
Although the parties focus on subsection (c), for context we begin by setting forth all of the provisions of K.S.A. 40-3113a :
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Herington v. City of Wichita
...789 P.2d 541 [1990], overruled on other grounds by Bair v. Peck , 248 Kan. 824, 844, 811 P.2d 1176 [1991] ); see McCullough v. Wilson , 308 Kan. 1025, 1036, 426 P.3d 494 (2018) ("[S]tare decisis effects even-handed, predictable, and consistent application of the law.") (citing Johnson v. Un......
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State v. Clark
...is arguably ambiguous, the doctrine of stare decisis is still a compelling reason to uphold our precedent. McCullough v. Wilson , 308 Kan. 1025, 1035, 426 P.3d 494 (2018) (regardless of whether statutory language is ambiguous, doctrine of stare decisis is compelling reason to affirm lower c......
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Herington v. City of Wichita
...may expect their legal disputes will be decided in a way consistent with rulings in similar cases. See McCullough v. Wilson , 308 Kan. 1025, 1035-36, 426 P.3d 494 (2018) ; State v. Sherman , 305 Kan. 88, 107-08, 378 P.3d 1060 (2016). At the same time, however, stare decisis is not an inexor......
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