Yearling v. State Farm Insurance

602 N.E.2d 434, 76 Ohio App. 3d 559, 1992 Ohio App. LEXIS 2172
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 16, 1992
DocketNo. 91AP-1094.
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 602 N.E.2d 434 (Yearling v. State Farm Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Yearling v. State Farm Insurance, 602 N.E.2d 434, 76 Ohio App. 3d 559, 1992 Ohio App. LEXIS 2172 (Ohio Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

Deshler, Judge.

Plaintiffs-appellants, Joseph H. Yearling, Jr. et al., appeal the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas’ decision, which declared that the terms of insurance policies the plaintiffs had with the defendant-appellee, State Farm Insurance Company (“State Farm”), limited State Farm’s obligation to pay under the underinsured motorist provisions of the policies.

The facts of this case are undisputed. On or about May 29, 1988, Scott Gillespie, then nine years old, was involved in auto accident in which he was mortally injured. Afterward, it was discovered that he qualified as an insured under two policies of insurance issued by State Farm to Thomas and Carol Gillespie. Those policies contained underinsured motorist coverage limits of $100,000/$300,000 each person/each accident.

Following the discovery of the State Farm coverage, Joseph H. Yearling, administrator of the estate of Scott Gillespie, presented the following claims to State Farm, pursuant to the underinsured motorist coverage portion of the policy: (1) a survivorship claim for conscious pain and suffering and other damages experienced by Scott Gillespie from the time of his injury to the time of his death; (2) a claim for wrongful death damages on behalf of Thomas Gillespie, as father of Scott Gillespie; (3) a wrongful death claim on behalf of Carol Gillespie, as the mother of Scott Gillespie; and (4) a wrongful death claim on behalf of Michael Gillespie, the brother of Scott Gillespie. Thereafter, State Farm paid $87,500 toward all of the above claims. The amount of $87,500 represents the $100,000 “each person” limit of underinsured motorist coverage less $12,500 paid by the tortfeasor’s liability carrier. However, plaintiffs disputed that the payment of $87,500 constituted full payment of all their claims.

On June 21, 1990, a declaratory judgment action was filed for purposes of obtaining a decision by the trial court as to how many limits of coverage were available in this case of a single, wrongful death with multiple claims arising therefrom. It was plaintiffs’ contention that the $300,000 “each accident” limit of liability should be available for payment of the aforementioned claims (less the $12,500 liability insurance payment) with each individual claim *561 subject to a maximum of $100,000, said amount being the “each person” limit of liability contained in the policy. Conversely, State Farm’s position was that the $100,000 “each person” limit of liability (less the $12,500 liability insurance payment) should be the maximum amount of insurance available in this case for payment of all the claims.

On July 18, 1991, the trial court concluded that the $100,000 each person limit of coverage which had previously been paid was the maximum amount of coverage owed in this case. In reaching this conclusion, the trial court ruled that the “ * * * Supreme Court line of cases now permitfs] an insurance carrier to contractually limit coverage of separate claims in underinsured cases to one injury. * * *” In addition, the trial court ruled that the policy language employed by State Farm established a limit of liability of $100,000. This appeal was then filed.

In this appeal, plaintiffs raise the following assignment of error:

“The trial court erred to the substantial prejudice of plaintiffs-appellants in ruling that each insured beneficiary of a wrongful death action does not have available a separate per person limit of uninsured motorist coverage.”

By way of this assignment of error, it obvious that, once again, this court is being asked to address the issue of what limit of liability under an underin-sured motorist provision of an automobile insurance policy applies to an insured’s claims from an insured decedent’s wrongful death. Is it a per person limit or a per accident limit? More specifically, this court is being asked to answer two questions: (1) May a policy of an insurance limit recovery of the underinsured coverage? and (2) If a policy may limit it, do the terms of the policies in the case sub judice limit the plaintiffs’ recovery?

Most recently, this court addressed the first question in Werner v. Cincinnati Ins. Co. (1991), 77 Ohio App.3d 232, 601 N.E.2d 573. In Werner, we determined that the current position of the Ohio Supreme Court, as espoused in State Farm Auto. Ins. Co. v. Rose (1991), 61 Ohio St.3d 528, 575 N.E.2d 459, is that policies may limit recovery of underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage arising out of a single bodily injury to a single limit of liability so long as the policy provisions track the corresponding limitation on liability coverage and are unambiguous on their face. We found that Rose limited the holding of Wood v. Shepard (1988), 38 Ohio St.3d 86, 526 N.E.2d 1089, which seemingly provided a complete bar against provisions limiting uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. Therefore, in accordance with Werner and Rose, we answer the first question above in the affirmative. A policy of an insurance may limit recovery of its underinsured coverage so long as it tracks the corresponding limit on liability coverage and the limitation is unambiguous.

*562 Having answered the first question, we now turn our attention to the second question, keeping in mind the caveat above that if a policy of insurance is to limit underinsured motorist coverage, it must track the corresponding limit of liability coverage and must unambiguously limit coverage.

Since the provisions in the policies at issue track the limits of liability coverage, we need not say more about the first requirement of Werner and Rose. Nevertheless, the policies at issue still must be judged for their sufficiency in unambiguously limiting liability to a single limit of recovery.

The insurance policies in this case provide:

“Limits of Liability
“1. The amount of coverage is shown on the declarations page under ‘Limits of Liability — U—Each Person, Each Accident.’ Under ‘Each Person’ is the amount of coverage for all damages due to bodily injury to one person. Under ‘Each Accident’ is the total amount of coverage for all damages due to bodily injury to two or more persons in the same accident.” (Emphasis added.)

To judge the sufficiency of this language to limit the underinsured motorist coverage, we examine the litany of cases which have been rendered by the Ohio Supreme Court in recent years.

The first in the series of cases is Dues v. Hodge (1988), 36 Ohio St.3d 46, 521 N.E.2d 789. In Dues, the language of the insurance policies drafted by State Farm was examined. “ ‘ * * * Each of the three policies carried uninsured motorist coverage liability limits which provided $100,000 for all damages due to bodily injury to one person, and $300,000 for all damages

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
602 N.E.2d 434, 76 Ohio App. 3d 559, 1992 Ohio App. LEXIS 2172, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/yearling-v-state-farm-insurance-ohioctapp-1992.