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State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Naomi Luebbers6/14/2005
4), the Maine Supreme Court held that limiting uninsured coverage to bodily injuries sustained by insured violated Maine's uninsured motorist statute. Each case involved claims for damages flowing from bodily injuries suffered by family members who were not insureds under the claimant's policy. Gloe, 694 N.W.2d at 240-41; Butterfield, 860 A.2d at 862. Both courts arrived at their holding after consideration of their respective statutes, their state's public policy goals, and case law from other states. The divergent result cannot be explained by differences in statutory language. While not identical, the South Dakota and Maine uninsured motorist laws are very similar. Gloe, 694 N.W.2d at 243; Butterfield, 860 A.2d at 865 n.11. The difference in result is better explained by each court's view of the breadth of the public policy expressed in the statute. The court in Gloe repeatedly stated that the purpose of its statute "is to protect the insured party who is injured in an automobile accident." Gloe, 694 N.W.2d at 245. In contrast, the Maine court emphasized the provision of its statute which mandated coverage for persons "who are legally entitled to recover damages" from uninsured motorists. Butterfield, 860 A.2d at 865 n.11; see also Jack v. Tracy, 722 A.2d 869, 871 (Me. 1999) (holding that father could recover wrongful death damages for deceased minor daughter who did not live with him and was not an insured under the policy father was covered by). As a sidelight, it is interesting that the Maine court noted that possibly in reaction to its decision in Jack, insurers began placing in their policies the requirement that bodily injury be suffered by an insured. Butterfield, 860 A.2d at 865.
The purpose of our uninsured motorist statute is to place insured persons in the same position they would be if the uninsured motorist had had insurance. That purpose is akin to the Maine emphasis on an insured's right to recover. New Mexico's purpose is clearly broader than South Dakota's, which taken at face value would preclude coverage for any derivative damages claim including loss of consortium. On balance, it is clear that New Mexico's public policy is much closer to Maine's than South Dakota's. As such, we are in the camp of courts holding that requiring bodily injury to an insured to trigger coverage is contrary to statute.
In sum, it appears that our uninsured motorist act, Section 66-5-301, does not require that there be bodily injury to an insured, but rather that the insured be legally entitled to recover damages from uninsured motorists because of bodily injury or death suffered by a person. Therefore, the State Farm policy exclusion at issue, which limits uninsured motorist coverage to bodily injuries suffered by an insured, unreasonably diminishes the coverage mandated in Section 66-5-301, and is invalid.
2. Can Brian Jr. be deemed an insured under the policy where the event causing his injury occurred when he was a four-week-old fetus?
State Farm argues that because Brian Jr. was a non-viable four-week-old fetus at the time of his injury, he cannot be considered an "insured" under its policy. State Farm's basic argument is that the policy definitional provision requires an insured to be a human being to be covered. Citing cases from a range of legal fields, State Farm asserts that a non-viable fetus is not considered a human being under New Mexico law. State Farm cites Miller v. Kirk, 120 N.M. 654, 655-56, 905 P.2d 194, 195-96 (1995), where the New Mexico Supreme Court held that a non-viable fetus was not a "person" within the meaning of the New Mexico Wrongful Death Act; State v. Willis, 98 N.M. 771, 773, 652 P.2d 1222, 1224 (Ct. App. 1982), in which this Court
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