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State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Naomi Luebbers6/14/2005
look to the terms of the insurance statutes to determine what is required, and then to the terms of the insurance policy to discern whether it complies with the mandatory law." Gonzales, 122 N.M. at 142, 921 P.2d at 949. " xclusionary [provisions] in insurance contracts shall be enforced so long as their meaning is clear and they do not conflict with statutory law. But when an insurance provision does conflict with a statute, it is void." Chavez v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 87 N.M. 327, 329, 533 P.2d 100, 102 (1975) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (second alteration in original).
Relying on legislative intent and the public policy concerns embedded in the uninsured motorist statute, our courts have found various exclusionary provisions in uninsured motorist policies invalid. For example, in Chavez, the Court found a clause limiting recovery for uninsured motorist coverage to an insured while riding in an insured vehicle invalid, "because it not the intent of the statute to limit coverage for an insured to a particular location or a particular vehicle." Id. at 330, 533 P.2d at 103. In Lopez, 98 N.M. at 169, 646 P.2d at 1233, the Court found a policy exclusion on stacking uninsured motorist policies invalid because the legislative intent of the statute is to provide a minimum amount of recovery, not a maximum. Exclusionary clauses prohibiting the recovery of punitive damages from an uninsured motorist policy have been found to be void and against public policy. Stinbrink v. Farmers Ins. Co., 111 N.M. 179, 180, 803 P.2d 664, 665 (1990). In Stinbrink, the Court considered whether the legislature intended that punitive damages be included in the term "legally entitled to recover" and held that "punitive damages are as much a part of the potential award under the uninsured motorist statute as damages for bodily injury, and therefore they cannot be contracted away." Id. (internal quotation marks, citation, and emphasis omitted).
State Farm, of course, acknowledges these statements but argues that in Dominguez v. Dairyland Insurance Co., 1997-NMCA-065, 8, 123 N.M. 448, 942 P.2d 191, we noted that uninsured motorist coverage is "`not intended to provide coverage in every uncompensated situation'." (Citation omitted.) In Dominguez, this Court upheld a territorial limitation on uninsured motorist coverage, reasoning that the statute does not preclude such a limitation, and the limitation does not violate the legislative concern to provide protection against "motor vehicle accidents in the state of New Mexico." Id. 7 (emphasis added, internal quotation marks omitted). In contrast, in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Marquez, 2001-NMCA-053, 3, 130 N.M. 591, 28 P.3d 1132, this Court held that "public policy require that uninsured motorist coverage be territorial coextensive with liability coverage " even if the result is coverage for injuries suffered outside the United States. We based our holding in Marquez on the dual premise that the "purpose of Section 66-5-301 is to protect an insured as if the uninsured motorist had liability coverage, and that the amount of uninsured motorist coverage depends on the amount of liability coverage." Marquez, 2001-NMCA-053, 7 (citation omitted).
Dominguez approved the territorial limitation because this Court found statutory support for it, while Marquez required coextensive coverage voiding a territorial limit because of the stronger public policy aim of protecting insureds as if the uninsured motorist had been insured. In our case, complete statutory silence cannot serve to override the policy goal of protection.
State Farm also argues that Gonzales, 122 N.M. at 142, 921 P.2d at 949 and Wiard
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