It’s not unusual for uninsured and underinsured motorist policies to carry per-person limits and per-accident limits. But in North Carolina, which limit applies isn’t always so easy to determine, thanks to what the state Supreme Court called a “lengthy and complicated” section of the law.
In North Carolina Farm Bureau vs. William Thomas Dana, posted Friday, Dec. 17, the court reversed a trial court and an appeals court that had decided that victims of a drunk-driving collision were due the higher per-accident limits of an underinsured motorist policies. Looking at the entirety of the statutes, legislative intent, plain meaning, and other factors, the Supreme Court found instead that the lesser amount included in the per-person limit should apply.
The court remanded the case to the lower courts to try again.
“The relevant statutory language most readily supports the use of an approach that determines the amount to be paid to any particular claimant by treating the per-accident amount of underinsured motorist coverage as the total sum that is available to all of the claimants entitled to a share of the available underinsured motorist coverage, subject to the caveat that the amount of underinsured motorist coverage that is available to any individual claimant is limited to the per-person amount,” Justice Sam Ervin IV wrote for the majority.
No individual claimant in the accident should receive more than the per-person limit, Ervin noted.
The case was the result of a deadly auto accident in North Carolina in 2016. An intoxicated Matthew Bronson was driving in Winston-Salem, crossed over into the other lane and struck another vehicle. Pamela Dana, the driver of the second car, later died from her injuries. Her husband, William Thomas Dana, was seriously injured, along with a woman in Bronson’s vehicle.
Bronson had auto coverage through Integon National Insurance, with bodily injury limits of $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident. The Danas had an underinsured policy through North Carolina Farm Bureau, with limits of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per accident.
Farm Bureau offered to pay the Danas $100,000 each, minus what the drunken driver’s Integon policy paid. The Danas’ attorney argued that they were due more, under the per-accident limit.
The trial court and the appeals court agreed. Farm Bureau appealed, lost at the appeals court level, but won at the Supreme Court.
Topics Legislation
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