State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Webb

• Decision Date: 10 October 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-1265,89-1265
• Citation: 54 Ohio St.3d 61,562 N.E.2d 132
• Parties: STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. WEBB, Appellee.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Page 61

54 Ohio St.3d 61

562 N.E.2d 132

STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. WEBB, Appellee.

No. 89-1265.

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted June 5, 1990.

Decided Oct. 10, 1990.

Syllabus by the Court

An insurer is not liable to its insured on an uninsured motorist claim where the claim arises from an accident in which the tortfeasor-motorist causing the insured's injuries has liability insurance but is immune pursuant to the statutory fellow-employee doctrine, because the insured is not legally entitled to a recovery from the tortfeasor. (Thiel v. Allstate Ins. Co. [1986], 23 Ohio St.3d 108, 23 OBR 267, 491 N.E.2d 1121, overruled.)

The facts in this case have been stipulated to by the parties. Randy L. Webb, the defendant-appellee, and William Creekmore were fellow employees at the Cincinnati Milacron plant, where Webb was a gate guard. While driving an automobile in the course of his employment with Cincinnati Milacron, Creekmore was required to be "checked through" the Milacron North Gate by Webb. While driving through the gate on March 16, 1983, Creekmore accidentally struck and injured Webb. Webb applied for and received workers' compensation benefits for his injuries from this accident.

Creekmore was insured under an automobile liability policy issued to him by Grange Mutual Casualty Company ("Grange") with bodily injury limits of $100,000/$300,000. Webb presented a claim to Grange for his injuries from the March 16, 1983 accident. Grange denied payment on the basis of Creekmore's statutory fellow-employee immunity provided by R.C. 4123.741. ¹

Webb's automobile insurance policy, issued by State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company ("State Farm"), provided uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, and stated in pertinent part: "We will pay damages for bodily injury an insured is legally entitled to collect from the owner or driver of an uninsured[/underinsured] motor vehicle. The bodily injury must be caused by accident arising out of the operation, maintenance or use of an uninsured[/underinsured] motor vehicle." ² (Emphasis added.)

When Webb presented an uninsured motorist claim to State Farm for his injuries from the accident, State Farm instituted this action for declaratory relief in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas. State Farm sought a determination that its insured was not legally entitled to uninsured motorist coverage because he could not legally recover damages from the tortfeasor who negligently caused the injuries. Both parties filed motions for summary judgment. The trial judge overruled State Farm's motion and granted Webb's motion.

The Court of Appeals for Hamilton County affirmed the trial court's decision, albeit reluctantly, based upon this court's prior holding in Thiel v. Allstate Ins. Co. (1986), 23 Ohio St.3d 108, 23 OBR 267, 491 N.E.2d 1121. The holding of Thiel, in essence, was that a tortfeasor's fellow-employee immunity arising from R.C. 4123.741 is not transferable to the injured party's uninsured motorist carrier.

The cause is now before this court pursuant to the allowance of a motion to certify the record.

Cash, Cash, Eagen & Kessel, Robert B. Cash and John R. Wykoff, Cincinnati, for appellant.

Lawrence & McGrath, James B. McGrath, Jr. and James E. Thaxton; Butkovich, Schimpf, Schimpf & Ginocchio and Richard J. Schimpf, Cincinnati, for appellee.

WRIGHT, Justice.

This case requires a review of the proper construction to be given to the phrase "legally entitled to recover" as used in R.C. 3937.18(A), as well as the phrase within the policy here, "legally entitled to collect." We hold that since Webb is not legally entitled to recover from Creekmore due to the fellow-employee immunity provided by R.C. 4123.741, Webb may not recover upon the uninsured motorist provisions of the policy issued him by State Farm. Thus, we must reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and overrule our prior holding in Thiel.

Prior to the court's opinion in Thiel, this court decided York v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. (1980), 64 Ohio St.2d 199, 18 O.O.3d 412, 414 N.E.2d 423. In York, the plaintiffs were injured when a city-owned fire truck, responding to an emergency call, collided with their vehicle. The insurers of the city and the driver of the fire truck denied legal liability for plaintiffs' claims pursuant to former R.C. 701.02, which granted immunity to members of the fire department while responding to an emergency. The plaintiffs' insurers also denied a claim filed by plaintiffs for uninsured motorist coverage based upon policies containing language almost identical to the language of Webb's policy. We held that the insurers were not liable because the city's immunity was dispositive of the case. In York, we stated that " * * * [t]he uninsured motorist coverage is to apply only in those situations in which the 'lack of liability insurance' is the reason the claim goes uncompensated, and not when the claim goes uncompensated because of the lack of liability due to the substantive laws of Ohio." (Emphasis deleted.) Id. at 202, 18 O.O.3d at 414, 414 N.E.2d at 425.

In Thiel, supra, the majority asserted two questionable rationales to explain why the holding in York would not be applicable. First, it maintained that there is a difference between the immunity provided in York under former R.C. 701.02(B), which the court labeled "absolute immunity" and the immunity provided under workers' compensation per R.C. 4123.741, which the majority labeled as "conditional immunity." The second rationale given by the majority in Thiel for their holding was that R.C. 3937.18(F), which provides that the "coverages required by this section shall not be made subject to an exclusion or reduction in amount because of any workers' compensation benefits payable as a result of the same injury or death," must be read in pari materia with R.C. 4123.741, which would prevent the transfer of the fellow-employee immunity from the negligent co-worker to the uninsured motorist coverage carrier.

We reject the reasoning in Thiel as to both points noted above. First, we restate and adopt the language of Justice Holmes' dissent in Thiel that "[t]he claimed dichotomy between the so-called absolute immunity in York and the 'conditional immunity' under R.C. 4123.741 is surely a distinction without any difference. All statutory immunities are, at some point, 'conditioned' upon the actions of the parties. In York, there needed to be some determination that the city vehicle was indeed on an emergency run before the issue of immunity was foreclosed as a matter of law by R.C. 701.02(B). Likewise, in the case here, immunity under R.C. 4123.741 is 'conditioned' upon a determination that the co-employee is entitled to workers' compensation. At the point when the immunity is obtained, there is nothing at all conditional about it. Any claim filed after such immunity is established is ineffective against the party so protected. * * *" Thiel, supra, 23 Ohio St.3d at 113, 23 OBR at 271, 491 N.E.2d at 1125.

Second, the majority in Thiel erred in its analysis of the effect of the fellow-employee immunity statute, R.C. 4123.741, upon the phrase "legally entitled to recover" of R.C. 3937.18(A)(1), by the in pari materia reading of the provisions of R.C. 3937.18(F), ³ which provides that the amount of uninsured motorist coverage to be paid to a party is not subject to an exclusion or reduction because of workers' compensation benefits. The rule of statutory construction of in pari materia is applicable only when the terms of a statute are ambiguous or its significance is doubtful. The language of R.C. 4123.741 is simply not ambiguous and requires no construction. The words in their common and ordinary sense have but one reasonable meaning--that one fellow employee is not entitled to recover damages from another arising out of injuries received at the work place in the course of their employment.

In putting to rest the Thiel majority's in pari materia analysis of R.C. 3937.18(F), we must again refer to the language of the dissent in Thiel:

"In order to observe 'a fundamental rule of statutory construction,' we are invited, via the majority's in pari materia analysis, to conclude that R.C. 3937.18(F) 'expressly prohibits the exclusion or reduction of benefits payable' due to a workers' compensation award. It is immediately apparent that the majority treats subsection (F) as a general prohibition, in conflict with the express grant of immunity provided in R.C. 4123.741. The only means found of reconciliation is to broadly strip insurers of the immunities which they, through subrogation, have a legal right to depend upon. Unfortunately, there was never any conflict between the two statutes or their underlying legislative intent.

"R.C. 3937.18 applies, in clear, precise terms, to 'automobile liability or motor vehicle liability polic[ies] of insurance * * * [which are] delivered or issued for delivery in this state with respect to any motor vehicle registered or principally garaged in this state * * *.' What follows are provisions to be included in the policies so issued, i.e., uninsured and underinsured motorist coverages. The subsections (B), (F) and (G) clearly apply to such policies and not to statutory immunities. That this is so is evidenced by their references to 'coverages' mandated to be provided in policies of insurance by R.C. 3937.18.

"The phrase 'shall not be made subject to an exclusion or reduction in amount' in R.C. 3937.18(F) also indicates the legislative intent to apply this subsection to insurance provisions only. The term 'immunity' is utilized to describe the protections which statutorily withhold liability and thereby protect a particular class, whether under workers' compensation or a particular tort theory. Neither of the terms 'exclusion' or 'reduction' is ever utilized to describe such statutory protections. No statute anywhere provides for a 'reduction' in...