explaining the purpose of UM coverage "was to provide financial recompense to innocent persons who receive bodily injuries . . . through the wrongful conduct of uninsured motorists"
How later courts described this case
- explaining the purpose of UM coverage "was to provide financial recompense to innocent persons who receive bodily injuries . . . through the wrongful conduct of uninsured motorists"
- In concluding that only compensatory or actual damages were covered under the state’s motor vehicle insurance statute, the Court opined that “if [punitive or exemplary] damages had been in the contemplation of the Legislature, it could have easily provided for in said statutes.”
- "Recovery under the uninsured endorsement is subject to the condition that the insured establish legal liability on the part of the uninsured motorist. Such an action is one ex delicto and the only issues to be determined therein are the liability and the amount of damage. After judgment is entered against the uninsured motorist, a direct action ex contractu can be brought to recover from the insurance company on its endorsement . . . ." (emphasis added)
- neither uninsured motorist law nor policy issued in conformity therewith requires payment of punitive damages for “bodily injury”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Brailsford, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The sums recoverable by the respondent from her insurance carrier are those provided by Section 46-750.14 relating to uninsured motorists. They are “all sums which (the insured) shall be legally entitled to recover as damages from the owner or operator of an unin *398 sured motor vehicle, within limits which shall be no less than the requirements of § 46-750.13.” Here the respondent had recovered judgment for $5,000.00 actual damages and $2,-500.00 punitive damages against an uninsured motorist. Both are sums which she is legally entitled to recover as damages and the aggregate of these sums is within the limits fixed by Section 46-750.13. Therefore, under the terms of the statute, she is entitled to recover the full amount of her judgment against the appellant. In my view, the italicized words in the foregoing quotation, incorporating by reference the limits fixed by Section 46-750.13, have no impact on the character of recoverable damages. They relate only to the amount of coverage which must be afforded an insured motorist who becomes legally entitled to recover damages from an uninsured motorist.
Bussey, J., concurs.