Ex parte Alfa Mutual Insurance Company PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS (In re: Patricia Myers v. Alfa Mutual Insurance Company) (Geneva Circuit Court: CV-23-16; Civil Appeals: CL-2024-0010).

• Court: Supreme Court of Alabama
• Decided: April 25, 2025
• Docket: SC-2024-0736
• Status: Published

Opinion

Rel: April 25, 2025

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is printed in Southern Reporter.

SUPREME COURT OF ALABAMA OCTOBER TERM, 2024-2025

_________________________

SC-2024-0736 _________________________

Ex parte Alfa Mutual Insurance Company

PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS

(In re: Patricia Myers

v.

Alfa Mutual Insurance Company)

(Geneva Circuit Court: CV-23-16; Court of Civil Appeals: CL-2024-0010)

MITCHELL, Justice. SC-2024-0736

Alfa Mutual Insurance Company ("Alfa") asks us to make loss-of-

use damages available when seeking to recover for a destroyed personal

vehicle. We agree that such damages should be available because they

are often necessary to make the owner or insurer of that vehicle whole.

Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals. See

Myers v. Alfa Mut. Ins. Co., [Ms. CL-2024-0010, Oct. 18, 2024] __ So. 3d

__ (Ala. Civ. App. 2024).

Facts and Procedural History

In February 2021, Patricia Myers ran her car into a Toyota

Highlander driven by Amy Gray and owned by Jeffrey Gray. Jeffrey, who

was insured by Alfa, filed a claim for his totaled vehicle. Alfa paid Jeffrey

$12,035 for the complete loss of the Highlander, which included $532.69

for the rental vehicle that the Grays had used for a short while after the

accident.

Alfa then sued Myers to recover the payment it had made to Jeffrey

under his insurance policy. After a trial, the Geneva District Court

entered a judgment in favor of Alfa, awarding it the full $12,035. Myers

appealed to the Geneva Circuit Court for a trial de novo, during which

she argued that Alabama law prohibited Alfa from recovering the cost of

2 SC-2024-0736

the rental car. Like the district court, the circuit court ruled in favor of

Alfa, concluding that loss-of-use damages were appropriate.

Myers appealed the circuit court's decision to the Court of Civil

Appeals. That court concluded that Hunt v. Ward, 262 Ala. 379, 79 So.

2d 20 (1955), Fuller v. Martin, 41 Ala. App. 160, 164, 125 So. 2d 4, 7

(1960), and Ex parte S&M, LLC, 120 So. 3d 509 (Ala. 2012), prohibited

the award of loss-of-use damages for a destroyed personal vehicle, and it

reversed the circuit court. But, in a special concurrence, all the sitting

members of the Court of Civil Appeals encouraged us to modify our

precedent governing loss-of-use damages. Alfa then petitioned this Court

for certiorari review, arguing that we should make loss-of-use damages

available for destroyed personal vehicles.

Standard of Review

The facts are undisputed, and the only question here is a legal one.

In such cases, we review the intermediate appellate court's legal

conclusions de novo. Ex parte Webb, 53 So. 3d 121, 127 (Ala. 2009).

Analysis

Loss-of-use damages "are a type of compensatory damage." MCI

Commc'ns Servs., Inc. v. CMES, Inc., 291 Ga. 461, 462, 728 S.E.2d 649,

3 SC-2024-0736

651 (2012); see also S&M, 120 So. 3d at 516. Compensatory damages

have traditionally been understood to place an injured party "in a

position substantially equivalent … to that which he would have occupied

had no tort been committed." Restatement (Second) of Torts § 903, cmt.a

(Am. L. Inst. 1979). Put simply, compensatory damages are meant to

make the injured party whole. Ex parte Goldsen, 783 So. 2d 53, 56 (Ala.

2000).

In 1955, however, this Court limited loss-of-use damages in vehicle

cases to only those cases when the vehicle is repairable. Hunt, 262 Ala.

379 at 384-85, 79 So. 2d at 25-26. Consequently, after Hunt, lower courts

were unable to award loss-of-use damages when a vehicle was destroyed

or irreparable. Id. As the former Court of Appeals once put it, because

of Hunt, recovery could not "be had for both total loss of an automobile

and loss of use of the same vehicle." Fuller, 41 Ala. App. at 164, 125 So.

2d at 164.

But the Hunt rule is in tension with the purpose of compensatory

damages. See S&M, 120 So. 3d at 516. Often, as here, the owner of a

destroyed personal vehicle must spend money for a short-term rental

replacement. Relatedly, the destruction of a commercial vehicle may

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deprive the owner of revenue during the search for a replacement. In

either of these instances, the owner is not whole if he recovers only the

cost of the wrecked vehicle; he is still missing the money spent to mitigate

his temporary lack of a mode of transport.

Our Court has recognized that the Hunt rule left the owners of

destroyed commercial vehicles less than whole. S&M, 120 So. 3d at 516.

The Court noted that the Hunt rule "is insufficient to accomplish [the

goal of compensatory damages] when the commercial vehicle at issue is

destroyed and a replacement vehicle is not immediately available." Id.

As a result, it "modif[ied]" the Hunt rule "with regard to a damaged

commercial vehicle that is not repairable" and "allow[ed] the recovery of

reasonable loss-of-use damages during the time reasonably required to

procure a suitable replacement vehicle." Id. 1

But while the Court overruled Hunt to the extent that it prohibited

loss-of-use damages for commercial vehicles, we have not previously

extended S&M's rule to destroyed personal vehicles. Id. This continues

1The S&M Court did not discuss the difference between personal

and commercial vehicles. It simply limited its holding to commercial vehicles because the facts of S&M concerned a taxicab rather than a personal car. 5 SC-2024-0736

to leave courts without a way to make the owners or insurers of such

vehicles whole. Consequently, the tension remains between the Hunt

rule and the traditional principles motivating compensatory damages.

And this tension continues to hurt the owners or insurers of personal

vehicles.

We now resolve this tension by extending S&M's holding and

overruling Hunt to the extent that it prohibits the recovery of reasonable

loss-of-use damages by the owners or insurers of personal vehicles. Thus,

when a personal vehicle has been destroyed, "reasonable loss-of-use

damages during the time reasonably required to procure a suitable

replacement vehicle" are recoverable. S&M, 120 So. 3d at 516. These

reasonable loss-of-use damages are often necessary -- as is the case here

-- to make either the owner or insurer of the personal vehicle whole.

We reverse the Court of Civil Appeals' judgment and remand the

case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

Stewart, C.J., and Shaw, Wise, Bryan, Sellers, Mendheim, and

McCool, JJ., concur.

Cook, J., recuses himself.