[00:00:01] Speaker 04:
We'll take our final oral argument today now if the Council come forward in 23-6061, Johnson v. Metropolitan.

[00:00:33] Speaker ?:
Thank you.

[00:00:35] Speaker 06:
I'm Rex Travis.

[00:00:37] Speaker 06:
I represent a young man who was injured, hurt badly at a horseback accident, as I'm sure you know.

[00:00:54] Speaker ?:
We're going to talk today, here, about 36-36-E.

[00:00:59] Speaker ?:
It deals with the question of

[00:01:02] Speaker 06:
and whether and under what circumstances can the insurance company exclude the coverage of an insurance insurer because they are occupying a vehicle owned by or regularly furnished for their use.

[00:01:27] Speaker 06:
Young Ryer Johnson was insured with metropolitan

[00:01:32] Speaker 06:
He was actually about to go into crash casualty, as opposed to that life.

[00:01:39] Speaker 06:
The work he went away with was insured under a policy of his parents providing $250,000 uninsured orders to coverage.

[00:01:58] Speaker 06:
He was riding his motorcycle.

[00:02:00] Speaker 06:
which was a small cycle that was at night reading.

[00:02:11] Speaker 06:
And he was hit by another car, full of the cycle, and laid there for some total minutes, and then was run over by another car, which didn't see him.

[00:02:36] Speaker 06:
He claimed that he was entitled as a, what are we calling it, Class II insured, a member of the family residing in the household, the uninsured mortar farm.

[00:02:55] Speaker 06:
on the policy bought by his parents.

[00:02:59] Speaker 06:
He had bought his own coverage on the motorcycle with another company.

[00:03:06] Speaker 06:
They bought only liability coverage in 2550 minimum automobile limits.

[00:03:16] Speaker 06:
The two more motorists who hit him had paid each their 25,000 dollars.

[00:03:22] Speaker 06:
And what we have remaining is the question of whether he is entitled to the $250,000 bonus provided by the policy which Metropolitan sold through his parents.

[00:03:41] Speaker 06:
And he was a member of the household.

[00:03:44] Speaker 02:
So can I ask you a question to make sure I understand the way the policies flow?

[00:03:49] Speaker 02:
The motorcycle policy, his own policy, he had liability coverage, but he had not elected for uninsured.

[00:03:58] Speaker 02:
Okay.

[00:03:58] Speaker 02:
But his parents' policy, they had elected uninsured motorist coverage.

[00:04:06] Speaker 02:
Okay.

[00:04:07] Speaker 06:
So he's insured under the Paris policy, and we claim he's entitled to that coverage.

[00:04:17] Speaker 06:
The case turns on a provision, an exclusionary provision in the MET policy, which says that we do not insure you

[00:04:33] Speaker 06:
while occupying another vehicle which you own, which is rarely furnished for your use.

[00:04:44] Speaker 06:
And then it says, provided that the vehicle is covered by an ongoing policy on real liability policy.

[00:04:58] Speaker 03:
It doesn't say liability, does it?

[00:05:00] Speaker 03:
I'm sure.

[00:05:00] Speaker 03:
It doesn't say liability, does it?

[00:05:04] Speaker 03:
And he had bought that coverage with Vito.

[00:05:10] Speaker 06:
The statute says that he has to have, in order to be covered, while occupying that vehicle that he owns, which does not have coverage on it.

[00:05:29] Speaker 06:
He has to buy automobile liability coverage.

[00:05:36] Speaker 06:
He has done that.

[00:05:39] Speaker 01:
Well, it says a motor vehicle insurance policy.

[00:05:43] Speaker 01:
Yes, sir.

[00:05:43] Speaker 01:
It didn't say liability insurance policy.

[00:05:46] Speaker 06:
A liability insurance policy, yes.

[00:05:48] Speaker 01:
A motor vehicle insurance policy.

[00:05:50] Speaker 06:
Yes, sir.

[00:05:51] Speaker 01:
It doesn't talk about liability or UM.

[00:05:53] Speaker 06:
That's correct.

[00:05:55] Speaker 06:
It does not mention UM, and that becomes very important.

[00:05:59] Speaker 01:
Can I just ask you this?

[00:06:01] Speaker 01:
Is there a rule as far as how we interpret this language?

[00:06:04] Speaker 01:
Is it read in favor of one party or the other if it's ambiguous?

[00:06:08] Speaker 06:
Because it is an exclusionary clause on the free side, and I'll break it for you in this case.

[00:06:17] Speaker 06:
Because it is an exclusionary clause, it is to be interpreted in favor of the insurer and against the insurer's comment.

[00:06:28] Speaker 06:
So we have at the very beginning of the case, the problem, does that policy that purports to exclude coverage when the vehicle is not insured or UM, but is insured,

[00:06:57] Speaker 06:
for liability purposes.

[00:07:02] Speaker 06:
Does that fill a bill, and can they exclude it?

[00:07:07] Speaker 06:
We think they cannot.

[00:07:10] Speaker 06:
However, there was a concern when the case first started in federal court, obviously, to remove federal court, the question arose,

[00:07:27] Speaker 06:
whether, and what was the effect of that interpretation of policy.

[00:07:36] Speaker 06:
We contend that unless he said, the excuse me said, that he would not be covered if the policy was not ensured

[00:07:57] Speaker 06:
I think the companies are going to be in good shape.

[00:08:01] Speaker 06:
But if they say, not a real lot of literature, then a long-term policy such as the young man had was going to go, strictly enough, and the anybody can end there.

[00:08:17] Speaker 06:
The exclusion does not appear.

[00:08:23] Speaker 06:
You might then need to get into

[00:08:26] Speaker 06:
The question of what does the court say about those things of exclusionism?

[00:08:37] Speaker 06:
And what's the meaning of that?

[00:08:40] Speaker 06:
And when it first started, there was a question about that.

[00:08:45] Speaker 06:
So I did not sue for that faith.

[00:08:47] Speaker 06:
I don't think that's community or history.

[00:08:52] Speaker 06:
the insurance company can defend and claim if they have an argument of defense.

[00:09:06] Speaker 06:
And we thought under the circumstances that they would be able to do that.

[00:09:10] Speaker 06:
That was the case.

[00:09:15] Speaker 06:
The case was pending, and it was pending for a long time just because of the community of the dockets in Oklahoma.

[00:09:26] Speaker 06:
We have so many Indian tribes there that the courts there were just overwhelmed with Indian cases.

[00:09:35] Speaker 06:
And the question of whether they should be tried in the federal court or the federal

[00:09:39] Speaker 06:
and this judge, and spent a lot of time dealing with those cases.

[00:09:45] Speaker 06:
No fault went home, but just that's the way the docking worked out.

[00:09:51] Speaker 06:
And my case was pending.

[00:09:54] Speaker 06:
We got it down, and you see us in the middle of the book, and this is how these bombings

[00:10:04] Speaker 06:
It's Coates versus Congress.

[00:10:09] Speaker 06:
And Coates says that they have to be without U.M.

[00:10:20] Speaker 06:
coverage as opposed to the question of, well, what are you going to do with liability policy but no U.M.

[00:10:31] Speaker 06:
We're not going to consider settlement negotiations.

[00:10:55] Speaker 04:
We're not going to consider settlement negotiations.

[00:10:58] Speaker 04:
You're not suggesting we should consider that.

[00:11:00] Speaker 06:
No, no, no, no, except that was brought to our attention.

[00:11:04] Speaker 06:
We called the case to the attention of the district court, and they took the position, actually, of filing with the court.

[00:11:18] Speaker 06:
The coach did not resolve these issues.

[00:11:23] Speaker 06:
So we found an application to amend the complaint

[00:11:28] Speaker 06:
That's why that becomes important.

[00:11:34] Speaker 06:
The court denied that and ruled against us on all issues, saying that there doesn't make much of a difference whether it's power will be a one-way insurance policy or a union policy as the statute requires.

[00:11:54] Speaker 06:
That's going to be the same result.

[00:11:58] Speaker 06:
So with that, I will turn it over to my political counsel.

[00:12:04] Speaker 06:
Thank you.

[00:12:04] Speaker 05:
Thank you.

[00:12:06] Speaker 05:
Good morning.

[00:12:07] Speaker 05:
May it please the court?

[00:12:08] Speaker 05:
My name is Michael Woodson.

[00:12:09] Speaker 05:
I'm here on behalf of Metropolitan Property and Casualty Company.

[00:12:13] Speaker 05:
This UM coverage dispute was submitted to the district court on stipulated facts.

[00:12:19] Speaker 05:
We believe the critical ones are that Briar Johnson owned a motor vehicle

[00:12:25] Speaker 05:
He was operating that motor vehicle at the time of the accident.

[00:12:28] Speaker 05:
He insured it with GEICO, was presented the statutorily mandated opportunity to purchase uninsured motorist coverage, and he declined that invitation in writing.

[00:12:40] Speaker 05:
At the time of the accident, Mr. Johnson was a resident of his parents' household.

[00:12:45] Speaker 05:
His parents had purchased their own auto policy covering three separate vehicles, not the vehicle in the accident.

[00:12:54] Speaker 05:
which contained an exclusion that said we do not cover a relative who owns a motor vehicle if such motor vehicle is not insured by a motor vehicle insurance policy.

[00:13:08] Speaker 05:
That's the exclusion that was invoked to deny the claim.

[00:13:11] Speaker 01:
That's the exclusion that the district court upheld.

[00:13:14] Speaker 01:
Can I have you pause there?

[00:13:17] Speaker 01:
The language that you read there from the policy tracks the statute.

[00:13:20] Speaker 01:
Same language.

[00:13:21] Speaker 01:
And if that's all we had, we didn't have any Oklahoma court decisions or anything else.

[00:13:27] Speaker 01:
And we just had that language.

[00:13:29] Speaker 01:
If such motor vehicle is not insured by a motor vehicle insurance policy, doesn't the plain text of that say you lose?

[00:13:37] Speaker 01:
Because there was a motor vehicle insurance policy.

[00:13:43] Speaker 01:
One, the Supreme Court has addressed that and I will come back to that.

[00:13:48] Speaker 01:
My question is, we'll get to those cases, but if it were just that language and not language alone and we're all textualists and we say, what's this language mean?

[00:13:59] Speaker 01:
We would say there was a motor vehicle insurance policy, would we not?

[00:14:04] Speaker 05:
We would, but there are two statutorily

[00:14:09] Speaker 05:
policy under Oklahoma's statutory scheme, and it's not just liability.

[00:14:14] Speaker 05:
The second mandatory component is UM, the legislature has just given you the opportunity as an insurer to make an informed written rejection of that required component.

[00:14:25] Speaker 05:
The mandatory part is it has to be offered.

[00:14:28] Speaker 05:
Correct.

[00:14:29] Speaker 05:
Yes, it does not have to be accepted, but it does have to be offered in an Oklahoma motor vehicle legislation.

[00:14:34] Speaker 04:
And someone reading that policy,

[00:14:38] Speaker 04:
like the plaintiff here, would understand that?

[00:14:42] Speaker 05:
Yes, I believe anybody who went through the process of purchasing insurance coverage.

[00:14:47] Speaker 04:
Would understand the language in the policy?

[00:14:53] Speaker 04:
Would understand that the need to purchase an automobile insurance policy means that he had to get both liability and UM coverage.

[00:15:04] Speaker 04:
Do you really think that that's

[00:15:06] Speaker 04:
But any reasonable person who bought an auto insurance policy would read the exclusion that way?

[00:15:14] Speaker 05:
I do.

[00:15:15] Speaker 05:
I do think that is exactly the process.

[00:15:17] Speaker 05:
You said there's a statutorily mandated language.

[00:15:19] Speaker 05:
There's a statutorily mandated experience that an auto owner has to go through.

[00:15:27] Speaker 05:
of automobile liability insurance policy, and you have to be offered in specific amounts, knowing the cost, knowing what the coverages are, uninsured motorist coverage, and you have to knowingly reject that in writing.

[00:15:40] Speaker 05:
So yes, I don't think that is a lead for an Oklahoma insurance consumer.

[00:15:45] Speaker 01:
But it could have been written more clearly for what you're saying.

[00:15:48] Speaker 01:
In other words, it could have said, if such motor vehicle is not insured by a motor vehicle insurance policy, that includes uninsured motorists.

[00:15:57] Speaker 05:
I guess under, there are two mandatory components.

[00:16:00] Speaker 05:
There are multiple potential components under motor vehicle policy.

[00:16:03] Speaker 05:
I guess it could have referenced more of those.

[00:16:06] Speaker 01:
If it had said that, everybody would understand it, but not saying that you have to make an inference that isn't supported by the text.

[00:16:15] Speaker 01:
It seems to me.

[00:16:17] Speaker 05:
I think that goes back to the nature of this

[00:16:28] Speaker 05:
on the Oklahoma legislature.

[00:16:30] Speaker 02:
So in the, in the policy, does it reference the Oklahoma statute?

[00:16:37] Speaker 02:
Does it say pursuant to Oklahoma statute 3636 E?

[00:16:43] Speaker 02:
We do not cover you or a relative who owns lease, blah, blah, blah.

[00:16:47] Speaker 05:
I apologize.

[00:16:48] Speaker 05:
I don't remember simply the text.

[00:16:50] Speaker 05:
I would be shocked if there was a reference to a statutory section.

[00:16:55] Speaker 02:
Yeah.

[00:16:55] Speaker 02:
Cause a person, it seems to me like a person.

[00:16:58] Speaker 02:
I mean, this isn't a statutory cause of action we're dealing with here either.

[00:17:02] Speaker 02:
I mean, this is a breach of contract case, right?

[00:17:05] Speaker 02:
Correct.

[00:17:05] Speaker 02:
So I mean, the contract spells out what goes on between the party and Oklahoma has specific laws for determining how to interpret insurance contracts.

[00:17:18] Speaker 02:
I mean, this may be a legal requirement for insurance companies in Oklahoma if they want to exclude

[00:17:27] Speaker 02:
make certain exclusions, but as far as Mr. Travis's client and yours, I mean, the document sets forth the party's rights and obligations.

[00:17:39] Speaker 02:
Okay, so in the document, if it does not have statutory references, I mean, how is the purchaser or someone who's covered by this policy supposed to know that they need to go reference a separate statutory provision to determine that, oh, this also, the word motor vehicle insurance policy also, it's two components, it's liability and uninsured motorist.

[00:18:09] Speaker 05:
I don't want to get stuck on semantics.

[00:18:12] Speaker 05:
The exclusion does not contain a citation to the statute.

[00:18:16] Speaker 05:
The exclusion contains the verbatim language of the statute.

[00:18:21] Speaker 05:
So I think the policyholder is being told exactly what the exclusion does.

[00:18:28] Speaker 05:
They place it in the uninsured voters section of the policy.

[00:18:31] Speaker 05:
They place it specifically in the exclusion section of the uninsured voters policy.

[00:18:36] Speaker 02:
Yeah, I mean, I just don't know how

[00:18:39] Speaker 02:
Someone obtaining car insurance is supposed to know that that's referencing a statute or some kind of Oklahoma law.

[00:18:50] Speaker 05:
I don't think they would know the citation, but they are actually being told exactly what the exclusion is, and the exclusion is the mere language that is in the legislatively enacted exclusion.

[00:19:00] Speaker 05:
I guess on that issue, this would be the point where I would phone a friend.

[00:19:15] Speaker 05:
They specifically made the comment in Coase, quote, the plain language of the statute, a motor vehicle insurance policy, means what it says, it may include either or both liability or UM coverage.

[00:19:30] Speaker 02:
It may include.

[00:19:32] Speaker 02:
Okay, go ahead.

[00:19:37] Speaker 02:
I don't want to jump out in front of you there.

[00:19:40] Speaker 01:
I don't understand why you think that helps you.

[00:19:43] Speaker 01:
It seems like that hurts in that it is distinguishing motor vehicle insurance policy into parts.

[00:19:50] Speaker 01:
And so it's saying, if you just have a liability policy, you got it.

[00:19:56] Speaker 01:
You're covered.

[00:19:56] Speaker 01:
If you've just got UM somehow, you're covered.

[00:20:00] Speaker 01:
And he did have a liability policy.

[00:20:03] Speaker 01:
So that language from Coach seems to cut against you.

[00:20:06] Speaker 01:
And unless you can help me understand why not.

[00:20:09] Speaker 05:
Well, where I think it's helpful to the position we're advocating is that it recognizes what motor vehicle insurance is in Oklahoma and says it's clear, and its liability in UM.

[00:20:23] Speaker ?:
I mean, either of them.

[00:20:26] Speaker 05:
Yeah, if you reject UM, it's going to be either or, but that's the insurance decision, which I think is critical to the remainder of the analysis.

[00:20:34] Speaker 05:
But I think that's where the

[00:20:36] Speaker 05:
court's comment in quotes on where that particular language was at issue.

[00:20:41] Speaker 01:
That's why I think that comment is telling it was significant with the district court in this case.

[00:20:48] Speaker 01:
Well, and just one quick follow up, and that is that language, does it say that if you have a general liability policy, you also have a motor vehicle insurance policy?

[00:21:00] Speaker 01:
It says either of them.

[00:21:02] Speaker 01:
So I assume the answer is yes.

[00:21:05] Speaker 05:
I apologize, Judge Phil is ready to follow the question.

[00:21:08] Speaker 05:
I'm a little lost on the reference to a general liability policy.

[00:21:15] Speaker 01:
Well, okay.

[00:21:16] Speaker 01:
The sentence says that, first of all, the plain language of the statute, a motor vehicle insurance policy, means what it says.

[00:21:25] Speaker 01:
So the court's emphatic.

[00:21:27] Speaker 01:
It may include

[00:21:29] Speaker 01:
either or both liability and UM coverage.

[00:21:33] Speaker 01:
So the court is saying you can have a motor vehicle insurance policy, the operative language from the statute that we care about, you can have that covered or met if you have a

[00:21:48] Speaker 01:
uh, insurance policy that is liability or UM.

[00:21:55] Speaker 01:
And if a liability policy without UM qualifies for that term and we pick it up and we put it over in the statute, then the plaintiff met the condition.

[00:22:08] Speaker 05:
Other than if you follow the codes and the Morris reasoning on

[00:22:24] Speaker 05:
under other motor vehicle policies in which they were insured.

[00:22:32] Speaker 02:
Is Connor problematic for you?

[00:22:40] Speaker 05:
To the extent it's a court of appeals case, I wish it was a Supreme Court case, but no.

[00:22:44] Speaker 05:
Connor, I think, is factually directly

[00:22:53] Speaker 05:
But he had a different exclusion.

[00:23:05] Speaker 02:
He had a more specific exclusion, didn't he?

[00:23:08] Speaker 05:
He did.

[00:23:10] Speaker 02:
When his was, we do not provide uninsured motors coverage for bodily injury sustained by any insured who is a family member while occupying or when struck by any motor vehicle owned by that person, which is not insured for uninsured motors coverage.

[00:23:29] Speaker 02:
Now that text is clear.

[00:23:31] Speaker 05:
That text is clear.

[00:23:37] Speaker 05:
to argue ambiguities in insurance contracts, it becomes an argument of floors and ceilings.

[00:23:41] Speaker 05:
You can get as close to the ceiling as you want to, but you can't go below the floor.

[00:23:45] Speaker 05:
The floor here is the language that came to us from the Oklahoma legislature when they found this particular exclusion was valid under Oklahoma's UM statute.

[00:23:58] Speaker 04:
That particular supervision that you quote is in a section

[00:24:06] Speaker 04:
Is it not?

[00:24:08] Speaker 04:
Correct.

[00:24:08] Speaker 04:
It is in 3636.

[00:24:09] Speaker 04:
If this were a matter of interpreting the contract in general, I think you make some good arguments.

[00:24:16] Speaker 04:
But that's not how we interpret insurance contracts.

[00:24:19] Speaker 04:
And I think you've got a problem there.

[00:24:21] Speaker 04:
Obviously, my colleagues have questions about that, too.

[00:24:25] Speaker 04:
It'd be real easy for you to reform the contract to state what Judge Carson was just saying.

[00:24:35] Speaker 04:
because I don't see why you would care.

[00:24:38] Speaker 04:
So, excuse me, if the fellow had liability insurance, that doesn't help you at all.

[00:24:49] Speaker 04:
So I would think you could easily cure this problem for future cases, but, well.

[00:25:04] Speaker 05:
that I would advocate to the court in addressing that concern is that this is a scenario in which there is a floor.

[00:25:12] Speaker 05:
This is the language, the exclusionary language that the legislature put in there, that Metropolitan Life took and put in there as well.

[00:25:21] Speaker 05:
So the argument is that floor.

[00:25:22] Speaker 04:
That's fine to use their language.

[00:25:25] Speaker 04:
The question is how the insured would read that language.

[00:25:30] Speaker 05:
Certainly.

[00:25:30] Speaker 05:
Well, they could have put a list

[00:25:43] Speaker 04:
Isn't that really, you really don't care whether this relative in the household carry liability insurance, do you?

[00:25:51] Speaker 04:
That wouldn't affect your rationale for providing uninsured motorists.

[00:25:55] Speaker 05:
We are clearly dealing with a legislatively enacted UM exclusion that is placed in metropolitan's uninsured motorist policy in the exclusion section.

[00:26:05] Speaker 05:
You're direct on that.

[00:26:06] Speaker 05:
This is a UM exclusion.

[00:26:10] Speaker 02:
Has anyone, any court except

[00:26:13] Speaker 02:
aside from Judge Gishman, accepted your position with this precise contract language.

[00:26:24] Speaker 05:
I am not aware of any of the other three post 2004 cases that have addressed it that have identical policy.

[00:26:33] Speaker 05:
So I think by indication, it would have to be known.

[00:26:36] Speaker 02:
Because Coates as well references UM coverage.

[00:26:48] Speaker 05:
Briefly, there are a lot of factual scenarios that the court recognizes and codes you have to address under UM, and they have carved out a section where if, under this exclusion, the injured insured has purchased UM coverage when it was offered to them, applying the exclusion to them would violate public policy.

[00:27:08] Speaker 05:
That's not our case here.

[00:27:10] Speaker 05:
He had the opportunity to avail himself of this statutory mandated

[00:27:22] Speaker 05:
Connor wasn't overruled in Morris or Coates.

[00:27:25] Speaker 05:
Connor was distinguished in Morris and Coates by the fact that he accepted the invitation to buy a new cover to his offer.

[00:27:34] Speaker 05:
Thank you.

[00:27:34] Speaker 05:
Was there additional questions?

[00:27:36] Speaker 05:
I think that is all I have.

[00:27:38] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:27:52] Speaker 06:
Judge Phillips was reading my exact paragraphs of the case that we think is controlled, which is a coach versus progressive case.

[00:28:06] Speaker 06:
I think it was, you may go to paragraphs 10 through 14, which was purely delineated in the

[00:28:26] Speaker 06:
But this case in Coast is absolutely controlled.

[00:28:33] Speaker 06:
And an interesting argument, the lawyer that they didn't repeat so far as I knew, I couldn't hear anything that those in council were saying.

[00:28:47] Speaker 06:
I have a stroke and I have a hearing loss and speech impairment as a result of it.

[00:28:54] Speaker 06:
But the Conner case was a case that the interns relied on until the Coates case came down.

[00:29:23] Speaker 06:
decided before this close case, they made very clear this.

[00:29:35] Speaker 06:
And in fact, the versions of the conclusions they tried to use were very specific in those cases.

[00:29:47] Speaker 06:
And you can see that from the reading of them.

[00:29:50] Speaker 06:
But there are notes and mentions in one hand saying,

[00:29:53] Speaker 06:
This guy, young Bernard Johnson, had not paid himself for uninsured murder coverage.

[00:30:09] Speaker 06:
And, you know, there are other cases here, including another very new, according to the report, case of Lane.

[00:30:22] Speaker 06:
which says Jesus doesn't make any difference who pays the premium.

[00:30:32] Speaker 06:
That was the case where two young women were horribly injured because a car driven by their high school classmate turned over and rolled.

[00:30:45] Speaker 06:
And in the program of 19 of that,

[00:30:49] Speaker 06:
the case, the lead case, they said this premium was paid by the father of the girl who was the at fault driver.

[00:31:03] Speaker 06:
And they said, as long as that coverage had been bought and paid for, that's all that counts.

[00:31:11] Speaker 06:
I think that's the issue that you should come to.

[00:31:17] Speaker 06:
Thank you.

[00:31:18] Speaker 04:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:31:19] Speaker 04:
Case is submitted.

[00:31:20] Speaker 04:
Counselor excused.

[00:31:22] Speaker 04:
Her will be in recess until 830 tomorrow morning.

[00:31:54] Speaker ?:
If there are any more questions, we'll walk away.

[00:32:14] Speaker ?:
Can you say any other?

[00:32:20] Speaker ?:
I do have a question.