{ "id": 5643264, "name": "DONALD R. STRYKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee", "name_abbreviation": "Stryker v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance", "decision_date": "1977-07-22", "docket_number": "No. 76-184", "first_page": "879", "last_page": "885", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "50 Ill. App. 3d 879" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "Ill. App. Ct.", "id": 8837, "name": "Illinois Appellate Court" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 29, "name_long": "Illinois", "name": "Ill." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "269 N.E.2d 295", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "N.E.2d", "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "48 Ill. 2d 1", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 2907350 ], "weight": 2, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "4" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/48/0001-01" ] }, { "cite": "48 Ill. 2d 1", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Ill. 2d", "case_ids": [ 2907350 ], "weight": 3, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "3-4" }, { "page": "7" }, { "page": "11" } ], "opinion_index": 1, "case_paths": [ "/ill-2d/48/0001-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 580, "char_count": 15951, "ocr_confidence": 0.883, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.27879270835649e-07, "percentile": 0.6167737964645815 }, "sha256": "f79f23b225b659cee0b92b7400aac13f95e24057e34a6db68b1836fb5af965ed", "simhash": "1:3e315fd685acd6c7", "word_count": 2507 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:01:05.304449+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [], "parties": [ "DONALD R. STRYKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee." ], "opinions": [ { "text": "Mr. JUSTICE GUILD\ndelivered the opinion of the court:\nThis is an action for a declaratory judgment that the plaintiff, Donald R. Stryker, is entitled to uninsured motorist benefits under his automobile insurance policy issued by the defendant, State Farm Mutual Insurance Company. Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment which was granted by the trial court. Plaintiff appeals.\nThe main issue on appeal is whether an automobile liability insurance policy which reduces uninsured motorist coverage by amounts paid under workmen\u2019s compensation is against public policy where the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier has waived its subrogation rights to payments under the uninsured motorist coverage and the damages are greatly in excess of the uninsured motorist coverage.\nThe plaintiff was involved in an automobile accident with an uninsured motorist on April 17, 1973. At that time plaintiff was insured with the defendant under an automobile liability policy which included the minimum statutory uninsured motorist coverage of *10,000 per person and *20,000 per accident. On August 19, 1975, plaintiff filed a complaint for declaratory judgment under section 57.1 of the Civil Practice Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1975, ch. 110, par. 57.1). In his complaint the plaintiff alleged he was injured in an automobile accident with an uninsured motorist and that his damages were greatly in excess of *10,000; that plaintiff had received workmen\u2019s compensation benefits for his injuries; that the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier had waived subrogation rights to payments under the uninsured motorist coverage; and that the defendant refused to submit plaintiff\u2019s demand to arbitration. After making its appearance, defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, asserting that the workmen\u2019s compensation benefits to plaintiff exceeded the *10,000 limits of the liability under the uninsured motorist provision to plaintiff\u2019s policy; that the policy reduced the limits of uninsured coverage to amounts paid under workmen\u2019s compensation; and that the Illinois Supreme Court has approved such limitation provisions in Ullman v. Wolverine Insurance Co. (1970), 48 Ill. 2d 1, 269 N.E.2d 295.\nOn November 17, 1975, the plaintiff, in response to a request of the defendant, admitted that the plaintiff\u2019s workmen\u2019s compensation payments exceeded *10,000. On January 27,1976, counsel for both parties appeared before Judge Thomas R. Doran and argued the motion for summary judgment. Following arguments, Judge Doran granted the defendant\u2019s motion and entered judgment accordingly. Plaintiff appeals from that order.\nOn appeal plaintiff argues that since the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier has waived its rights to subrogation of amounts which may be paid under the uninsured motorist provisions of the policy, that Ullman is not controlling. Plaintiff contends that the waiver of the \u201cLimits of Liability\u201d provision, the same provision as the Supreme Court construed in Ullman, places him in a different position than the plaintiff in Ullman. Plaintiff concludes that therefore the \u201cLimits of Liability\u201d provision is contrary to the stated purpose of the uninsured motorist act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 73, par. 755a), and is void as against public policy.\nIn Ullman the Supreme Court was presented with the issue of whether the \u201cLimits of Liability\u201d provision of the uninsured motorist coverage in Ullman\u2019s automobile liability insurance policy with Wolverine Insurance Company violated public policy. In the majority opinion of Ullman, the court quoted the pertinent parts from the uninsured motorist act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1969, ch. 73, par. 755a); the financial responsibility act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1969, ch. 95%, par. 7A \u2014 203) and the \u201cLimits of Liability\u201d provision in question. The court noted that the legislative intent of the uninsured motorist act was,\n\u201c \u00b0 * \u00b0 to place the policyholder in substantially the same position he would occupy, so far as his being injured or killed is concerned, if the wrongful driver had had the minimum liability insurance required by the Financial Responsibility Act.\u201d (48 Ill. 2d 1, 4.)\nThe court then pointed out that under the Illinois \"Workmen\u2019s Compensation Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1969, ch. 48, par. 138.5(b)) an employee who receives compensation under the Act is required to reimburse the employer from any recovery the employee received from a third party legally responsible for the employee\u2019s injuries. The majority concluded that if the deduction challenged were permitted, that the employee\u2019s position would in fact be the same under the policy as where the tortfeasor carried minimum insurance. In such a case, if the injured employee recovered any money damages from a minimally insured tortfeasor he would be required to fully reimburse the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier to the extent of the *10,000 recovery. The effect is a wash of the funds through the employee\u2019s hands and of no benefit to him. This has the same effect upon the injured employee as if the uninsured motorist coverage \u201cLimits of Liability\u201d provision were enforced. Therefore, the court held that the provision in question did not violate public policy.\nUnder Ullman the \u201cLimits of Liability\u201d provision is enforceable and, therefore, the insured injured employee had no right to recover from the defendant insurance company under the uninsured motorist coverage. Thus, in the case at hand, the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier\u2019s waiver was a waiver of a right that was nonexistent. We fail to see how this waiver of a nonexisting right of subrogation can be held to alter the holding of Ullman. The plaintiff has received minimum statutory compensation from his employer\u2019s workmen\u2019s compensation carrier and that is the maximum compensation that the uninsured motorist act was intended to guarantee. The act is not intended to guarantee the plaintiff any more than he has received. No one is guaranteed that his injury will be fully compensated, only that he will be able to receive up to *10,000 compensation when injured in an automobile which is under the provisions of an uninsured motorist policy. We therefore find Ullman is controlling and that the \u201cLimits of Liability\u201d provision is not violative of public policy.\nIn light of our holding we find no need to pass upon the plaintiff7s other argument that \u201cdouble recovery\u201d does not justify the ruling because plaintiff\u2019s damages are greatly in excess of workmen\u2019s compensation benefits.\nFoi the above reasons, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.\nAffirmed.\nNASH, J., concurs.", "type": "majority", "author": "Mr. JUSTICE GUILD" }, { "text": "Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE RECHENMACHER,\ndissenting:\nI respectfully dissent from the opinion of the majority. The opinion is bottomed squarely on the Ullman case and adopts its reasoning, disregarding the fact that the acknowledged basis of the Ullman case is missing from the case before us. :\nIt is at once apparent in reading the Ullman case that it is based on the interaction between the workmen\u2019s compensation subrogation provision and the insurance company\u2019s policy provision reducing its liability under uninsured motorist coverage by the amount paid to the insured under workmen\u2019s compensation law.\nThe Ullman opinion sets out the insurance company\u2019s position as follows:\n\u201cWolverine, in defense, says that the provision in its policy permitting the deduction of workmen\u2019s compensation benefits does not reduce the amount of protection, financially considered, that would have been provided had the decedent been killed by an insured motorist who had met the minimum requirements of the Financial Responsibility Law by having *10,000 liability coverage. This results because any recovery the plaintiff would have received because of the negligence of an insured motorist would have been subject to the subrogation claims of the employer of the decedent for workmen\u2019s compensation benefits paid. Therefore, here, Wolverine points out, a full recovery of *10,000 from a motorist would have been more than offset by the subrogation claims of the employer in the amount of *14,000.\u201d 48 Ill. 2d 1, 3-4.\nThe Ullman court adopts this reasoning, on page 7, saying:\n\u201cIn Illinois, if the deduction challenged here is permitted, the employee\u2019s position is the same under the uninsured motorist\u2019s coverage as it would be had the tortfeasor carried the minimum insurance. Where the tortfeasor is insured, the employee reimburses his employer in full from the recovery from the tortfeasor. Where the tortfeasor is uninsured, the benefits paid by the employer are deducted from the recovery.\u201d 48 Ill. 2d 1, 7.\nThus, the court in Ullman obviously felt it was faced with the prospect of invalidating the insurance company\u2019s reduction of liability provision, without in effect benefiting the insured. Provisions such as that of the insurance carrier in the Ullman case, reducing the company\u2019s liability by the amount of recovery received from another source, are not an attempt to reduce the company\u2019s liability so much as a wish to avoid paying someone else\u2019s claim. That is to say, where another party is liable, but has in turn exacted a subrogation right from its claimant, the insurance company, in its turn, feels justified in protecting itself by specifically avoiding the effect of the subrogation clause in the other transaction, by inserting a provision to that effect in its contract. Thus the provision involved in Ullman has become a standard part of many insurance policies to be invoked in cases where otherwise the insurance company would, in effect, be paying another person\u2019s legal liability under the doctrine of subrogation.\nSo viewed, the insurance company\u2019s policy provision here involved is defensive in character and is not against public policy because in most instances it takes nothing from the public. But where the insured and the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier or the employer have agreed that as part of their settlement with the injured employee, subrogation shall not be invoked against the employee, the basis of the Ullman decision disappears. Had the Ullman case merely held that regardless of any other consideration, the insurance company\u2019s provision reducing its liability by the amount of workmen\u2019s compensation benefits received, was a contractual limitation which must be enforced under contract law, we would have an entirely different legal situation. It would then not be a public policy question, but an ordinary case of enforcing the provisions of a contract. But, the background of the uninsured motorist coverage precluded such a narrow view. The coverage is required by statute and is obviously a public policy provision. The question that arose in the Ullman case, therefore, was decided on grounds of public policy and not merely as a matter of contract. The question was whether the policy provision reducing liability under such coverage below the statutory limits was in derogation of the announced public policy of protecting the public to a certain extent against the carelessness of uninsured motorists. The Supreme Court in answering the question in the negative was clearly influenced by the fact that the insured could not collect more than the workmen\u2019s compensation award in any event, since anything the insured collected from the insurance company under the uninsured motorist coverage would go back to the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier under its subrogation clause.\nIt must be borne in mind that this case was decided on the pleadings, strictly on the basis of the Ullman case. Any significant difference between that case and the present one removes the necessity for following the Ullman case as a precedent. The majority opinion here, in summarizing the Ullman case, says:\n\u201c \u00b0 \u00b0 \u00b0 The majority concluded that if the deduction challenged were permitted, that the employee\u2019s position would in fact be the same under the policy as where the tortfeasor carried minimum insurance. In such a case, if the injured employee recovered any money damages from a minimally insured tortfeasor he would be \u2022required to fully reimburse the Workmen\u2019s Compensation carrier to the extent of the *10,000 recovery. The effect is a wash of the funds through the employee\u2019s hands and of no benefit to him. This has the same effect upon the injured employee as if the uninsured motorist coverage \u2018Limits of Liability\u2019 provision were enforced. Therefore, the court held that the provision in question did not violate public policy.\u201d\nThe majority opinion, however, after thus summing up the rationale of the Ullman case, in the next paragraph totally ignores the reason why the Supreme Court held as it did and states that since the court held the policy provision reducing its liability to be enforceable, there exists no right of subrogation against the insurance proceeds and therefore the question of waiver of the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier\u2019s right of subrogation is meaningless.\nIn this reasoning I feel that the majority opinion is arguing in a circle, because it assumes the very thing to be decided \u2014 that the insurance company\u2019s policy provision is not under any circumstances against public policy. Until we decide that we cannot say there is nothing for the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier to be subrogated to.\nThe Supreme Court did not so hold. It simply held that because of the effect of the subrogation clause of the workmen\u2019s compensation statute, the policy provision in question was not against public policy. This much is clear from the majority opinion in the instant case quoted above. Thus, to ignore the subrogation provision of the workmen\u2019s compensation statute is to ignore the relationship between it and the insurance policy provision in question, which relationship is, according to the majority opinion, the nub of the Ullman opinion. If, indeed, the majority opinion rests on the arbitrary holding that the provision reducing the insurance carrier\u2019s liability is a matter of contract and enforceable without regard to public policy considerations, a couple of sentences would have sufficed for the opinion because on that basis there was nothing to be subrogated \u2014 the insurance company had no liability and nothing more need be said than that.\nObviously, the majority opinion here, in explaining the rationale of the Ullman case, avoids this position and relates the Ullman decision to the effect of the subrogation clause in the workmen\u2019s compensation statute. In so doing it opens the question raised by the waiver of that clause by the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier, which clearly affects the present decision.\nThe question of double recovery raised in the Ullman opinion and referred to by the majority in the case before us, is not in issue here. It is logical to assume that the injured employee gave up something for the waiver of subrogation by the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier and the injuries may well have been more than he received in benefits. But, if he did strike a bargain with the workmen\u2019s compensation carrier, he did not get the benefit of it \u2014 only the insurance company benefited. As Justice Ward remarked in his dissenting opinion in the Ullman case,\n\u201c \u00b0 \u00b0 \u00b0 What concerns me is the implicit construction by the majority that the legislature intended to permit an insurance carrier, by restricting its liability, as here, to financially advantage itself by the fortuitous circumstance that its insured when killed or injured was within the protection of the Workmen\u2019s Compensation Act.\u201d 48 Ill. 2d 1, 11.\nThis comment applies with peculiar force to the circumstances of the case before us. I would reverse the trial court\u2019s order dismissing the complaint.", "type": "dissent", "author": "Mr. PRESIDING JUSTICE RECHENMACHER," } ], "attorneys": [ "Ludolph J. Wilson, of Wilson, Staben & Wilson, of Waukegan, for appellant.", "John T. Kennedy, of Querrey, Harrow, Gulanick & Kennedy, of Chicago, for appellee." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "DONALD R. STRYKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.\nSecond District\nNo. 76-184\nOpinion filed July 22, 1977.\nRECHENMACHER, P. J., dissenting.\nLudolph J. Wilson, of Wilson, Staben & Wilson, of Waukegan, for appellant.\nJohn T. Kennedy, of Querrey, Harrow, Gulanick & Kennedy, of Chicago, for appellee." }, "file_name": "0879-01", "first_page_order": 901, "last_page_order": 907 }