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Walther v. Allstate Insurance Co.6/21/1990
This appeal arises from the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, wherein Judge William C. Miller ruled that Allstate Insurance Company, because of a household exclusionary clause, was not obligated to indemnify Charles and Barbara Walther for more than the statutory minimum provided in the Maryland Financial Responsibility Law.
The single issue before us is whether, in the light of the Court of Appeals decision in Boblitz v. Boblitz, 296 Md. 242, 462 A.2d 506 (1983), declaring invalid interspousal immunity, the circuit court erred "in determining that the limit of liability for insurance coverage for claims by household members" is the amount "required by the Maryland Financial Responsibility Law."
At the time of the incident for which claim is made, Charles and Barbara Walther were husband and wife. Mrs.
Walther was injured when she attempted to exit the car while her husband was simultaneously causing the vehicle to accelerate. The car door struck Mrs. Walther, injuring a femur, ankle, knee, and hip. Mr. Walther was insured by Allstate Insurance Company. His policy coverage was in the amount of $50,000 per person and $100,000 per occurrence. Notwithstanding those policy limits, Allstate offered Mrs. Walther $20,000 in settlement of all claims, asserting that, with respect to her, that sum was the policy limit.
The limitation, Allstate says, is written into the insurance contract under what is commonly referred to as the "household clause." That clause specifically excludes "bodily injury to any person related to an insured person by blood, marriage, or adoption and residing in that person's household, to the extent that the limits of liability for this coverage exceed the limits of liability required by the Maryland Financial Responsibility Law." The Maryland Financial Responsibility Law, Md. Transp.Code Ann., ยง 17-103(b)(1), currently requires minimum insurance coverage in the amount of $20,000. Both parties moved for summary judgment. In a written opinion, Judge Miller concluded that the "household clause" limitation on liability for bodily injury does not violate public policy. Judge Miller ruled that the limit of liability insurance coverage, with respect to Mrs. Walther under her husband's policy with Allstate, was $20,000.
Because Boblitz abolished interspousal immunity in negligence cases, the Walthers aver that the limitation on household claims imposed by the Maryland Financial Responsibility Law violates the public policy derived from Boblitz. The Walthers reason that the abrogation of interspousal immunity not only permits Mrs. Walther to sue her husband for all damages she sustained as a result of his negligence but to assert that because the Maryland Financial Responsibility Law prohibits them from recovering damages in excess of $20,000 it violates public policy. Overlooked by that simplistic argument is the fact that Mrs. Walther is not precluded from recovering damages from
her husband in excess of $20,000 but merely from obtaining more than $20,000 from her husband's insurance carrier, Allstate. The Boblitz Court said:
"We share the view now held by the vast majority of American States that the interspousal immunity Rule is unsound in the circumstances of modern life in such cases as the subject. It is a vestige of the past. We are persuaded that the reasons asserted for its retention do not survive careful scrutiny. They furnish no reasonable basis for denial of recovery for tortious personal injury. We find no subsisting public policy that justifies retention of a judicially created immunity that would bar recovery for injured victims in such cases as t
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