Pickering v. American Employers Ins. Co.

• Citation: 109 R.I. 143,282 A.2d 584
• Decision Date: 13 October 1971
• Docket Number: No. 1151-A,1151-A
• Parties: Beverly Ann PICKERING v. AMERICAN EMPLOYERS INSURANCE CO. et al. ppeal.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Rhode Island

Page 584

282 A.2d 584

109 R.I. 143

Beverly Ann PICKERING v. AMERICAN EMPLOYERS INSURANCE CO. et al.

No. 1151-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Oct. 13, 1971.

Louis M. Macktaz, Peter Y. Macktaz, Woonsocket, for plaintiff.

Gunning, LaFazia, Gnys & Selya, Richard T. Linn, Providence, for defendant, London Guarantee & Accident Co., Ltd.

OPINION

KELLEHER, Justice.

On February 28, 1965, the plaintiff was a front-seat passenger in an automobile which was being operated by her friend, Alice E. Lovell. The Lovell car was stopped at a stop sign when it was struck in the rear by a taxicab. The force of the collision threw the plaintiff up against the dashboard and then catapulted her back into the rear portion of the car. The impact of the plaintiff as she struck the upper part of the front seat caused it to become dislodged. The plaintiff's injuries were such that she was hospitalized on two separate occasions and treated by physicians for an extended period of time. She also experienced a loss in her income.

The plaintiff began to seek redress for her injuries by bringing a negligence action against the taxi's owner and its driver. She also named Alice as a party defendant. Her complaint was filed in the Superior Court on February 16, 1967. On July 31, 1967, it was disclosed in a reply given to an interrogatory asked of the taxi driver that the cab was insured by the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. The limits of the policy were $5,000 for bodily injury per person and $10,000 per accident. Thereafter, plaintiff advised her insurer, London Guarantee & Accident Co., Ltd., that she was making a claim against it under the uninsured motorists provisions of her automobile liability policy because the cab's insurance coverage provided less than the $10,000/20,000 minimum required by the appropriate provisions of the Rhode Island financial responsibility law. Later, Liberty Mutual paid plaintiff the full $5,000 due under its policy. On February 21, 1968, the negligence action was dismissed with prejudice as to the cab owner and its driver. A few days earlier plaintiff, on her own motion, submitted to a voluntary dismissal of her suit against Alice. Three months later, on May 20, 1968, this action was commenced. In it, plaintiff alleges that her injuries were caused by the negligent operation of an uninsured automobile and she seeks damages under the uninsured motorists provisions of her policy and the policy issued Alice by the American Employers Insurance Company. Hereafter, we shall refer to plaintiff's insurer as London and where applicable, we shall call Alice's insurer American.

A hearing was held before a Superior Court justice who thereafter filed a rescript wherein he found that plaintiff had sustained damages in the amount of $25,000. He credited both insurers for the $5,000 paid by Liberty Mutual and then ordered each insurer to pay plaintiff the sum of $10,000. American ¹ has paid the $10,000. London, however, has taken this appeal. Before us, it has briefed and argued a number of reasons why it is not liable to its insured. For ease of discussion, we have categorized its contentions into four issues. They concern (1) the status of the cab; (2) the statute of limitations; (3) the amount, if any, due plaintiff; and (4) plaintiff's failure to abide by the policy provisions. We shall discuss the issues thus framed in the order we have listed them.

I

The Status of the Cab.

London argues that the taxi was not an uninsured vehicle because, at the time of the collision, the limits set forth in the Liberty Mutual policy were in compliance with the statutes that govern the operation of taxicabs and other public motor vehicles in this state. G.L.1956, § 39-14-18 ² provided that the owner of such a vehicle was required to obtain a liability insurance policy containing bodily injury limits of $5,000/10,000. The defendant argues that the cab's status should be determined by the 'taxicab statute' rather than the statutes governing the issuance of uninsured motorists insurance coverage. We disagree.

Section 39-14-18 had its inception in 1929 when the General Assembly adopted P.L.1929, chap. 1423. This statute requires a taxicab owner to procure a liability policy. It was enacted at a time when an automobile was considered as a luxury rather than as a necessity. In those days nobody foresaw the social and economic havoc that has been wrought by the presence on our highways of the uninsured motorist. The legislation requiring automobile insurance companies doing business in this state to offer a willing motorist the opportunity to recover damages for his bodily injuries, which are solely attributable to the negligence of the uninsured motorist, first appeared on the statute books of this state in 1962. ³ While both statutes provide compensation for bodily injury sustained as the result of the negligent operation of a motor vehicle, they serve different purposes. Uninsured motorists insurance is not liability insurance. It does not undertake to protect the insured against liability he may incur to others but rather it compensates him for a loss caused by a specific class of tort-feasors-the uninsured. Kirouac v. Healey, 104 N.H. 157, 181 A.2d 634. On the other hand, the insurance required by the taxicab statute affords the insured protection, not compensation. The statute which gives an opportunity to be compensated for injuries caused by the negligent operation of an uninsured motor vehicle is today known and cited as G.L.1956 (1969 Reenactment) § 27-7-2.1. ⁴ We have previously described the uninsured automobile encompassed by § 27-7-2.1 as being a motor vehicle which at the time of the collision is not covered by a liability policy in the minimum limits mandated by § 31-31-7. Allstate Ins. Co. v. Fusco, 101 R.I. 350, 223 A.2d 447. The taxi that struck Alice's car is just such a vehicle.

It would be completely unrealistic to hold that the Legislature, when it permitted the members of the public to obtain uninsured motorists coverage, would deny them the benefits due thereunder if the damages were caused by an underinsured vehicle such as the taxi insured by Liberty Mutual. This is in accord with the principle that statutes which are not inconsistent with one another and which relate to the same subject matter should be considered together so that they will harmonize with each other and be consistent with their general object and scope even though they contain no reference to one another and were passed at different times. Providence Teachers Union v. School Committee, R.I., 276 A.2d 762.

The plaintiff's insurer also alleges that in the Superior Court there was a failure of proof on the issue of whether the cab was an uninsured motor vehicle. This assertion is based on the theory that it was up to plaintiff to show that the cab had no other liability insurance over and above that supplied by Liberty Mutual which might be applicable to the February 1965 rear-end collision. We find this argument to be devoid of any merit. When plaintiff introduced Liberty Mutual's policy, she had established her right to proceed against her insurer. Thereafter, it became London's burden to show that there was other insurance applicable to the cab which, when added to Liberty Mutual's $5,000, would take the cab out of the uninsured classification.

II

The Statute of Limitations.

This suit was begun more than three years after plaintiff was injured. Her insurer maintains that this action is one for personal injuries within the meaning of § 9-1-14 and is barred by the two-year statute of limitations set forth in § 9-1-14. The plaintiff describes her suit as a contract action which falls within the six-year statute of limitations found in § 9-1-13.

Recently, in Lessard v. New Hampshire Ins. Co., 106 R.I. 275, 258 A.2d 793, we were confronted with but did not resolve the identical question presented in this phase of defendant's appeal. There we decided that, since the insured's suit against the uninsured tort-feasor was still pending, the insurer's right of subrogation had been preserved. We saw no reason, therefore, for denying the insured the right to sue his insurance company for benefits under his uninsured motorists coverage. In the case at bar, however, the suit against the cab owner and its driver has been dismissed. We must now decide whether an insured, injured by the alleged negligence of an uninsured motorist and who has not commenced a civil action against his own insurer within the two-year period of limitations described in § 9-1-14, can maintain an action against his insurer provided suit is brought within the six-year period prescribed for civil actions generally.

Section 9-1-14 provides that all actions for 'injuries to the person' shall be commenced and sued within two years next after the cause of action shall accrue and not after. In seeking to find the meaning of the phrase 'injuries to the person' we need look no further than Commerce Oil Refining Corp. v. Miner, 98 R.I. 14, 199 A.2d 606, where our present Chief Justice gave a detailed analysis of § 9-1-14 and the phrase 'injuries to the person.' In holding that an action for the abuse of process was within the meaning of 'injuries to the person' and thereby subject to the two-year limit of § 9-1-14, the Chief Justice set forth an extensive study of the legislative history of the statute and then remarked:

'It is then our conclusion that the phrase 'injuries to the person' as used in the instant statute is to be construed comprehensively and as contemplating its application to actions involving injuries that are other than physical. Its purpose is to include within that period of limitation actions brought for injuries resulting from invasions of rights that inhere in man as a rational being, that is, rights to which one is entitled by reason of being a person in the eyes of the law. Such rights, of course, are to be distinguished from those which accrue...