{ "id": 8358374, "name": "SOUTH CAROLINA INSURANCE COMPANY v. DONALD EUGENE WHITE, JANE WHITE and ETHELENE HIKES", "name_abbreviation": "South Carolina Insurance v. White", "decision_date": "1986-07-15", "docket_number": "No. 858SC1368", "first_page": "122", "last_page": "126", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "82 N.C. App. 122" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "N.C. Ct. App.", "id": 14983, "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 5, "name_long": "North Carolina", "name": "N.C." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "266 S.E. 2d 818", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1980, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "823" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "300 N.C. 295", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8561077 ], "year": 1980, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "304" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/300/0295-01" ] }, { "cite": "13 A.L.R. 3d 1228", "category": "reporters:specialty", "reporter": "A.L.R. 3d", "year": 1967, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "330 So. 2d 14", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "So. 2d", "year": 1976, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "319 So. 2d 152", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "So. 2d", "case_ids": [ 9614510 ], "year": 1975, "pin_cites": [ { "parenthetical": "The Court acknowledged that the wife had sustained damages for loss of consortium, but concluded that the maximum amount of recovery was the limit as to one bodily injury and that the insurer had discharged its responsibility to the wife under the policy." } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/so2d/319/0152-01" ] }, { "cite": "585 F. Supp. 618", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F. Supp.", "case_ids": [ 7860278 ], "year": 1984, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "619" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f-supp/585/0618-01" ] }, { "cite": "140 S.E. 2d 787", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "case_ids": [ 2110489, 2110522 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1965, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "790" }, { "page": "791" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/sc/245/0383-01", "/sc/245/0389-01" ] }, { "cite": "245 S.C. 389", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "S.C.", "case_ids": [ 2110522 ], "year": 1965, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "394" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/sc/245/0389-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 443, "char_count": 8779, "ocr_confidence": 0.817, "pagerank": { "raw": 2.685512662587063e-07, "percentile": 0.8270337382604159 }, "sha256": "d517741ce15611eda8083bd87face12b4bdc0808985152355ea9d13953cadf05", "simhash": "1:ab4ff3ef1c8081f5", "word_count": 1433 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T22:29:18.916973+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [ "Judges Arnold and WELLS concur." ], "parties": [ "SOUTH CAROLINA INSURANCE COMPANY v. DONALD EUGENE WHITE, JANE WHITE and ETHELENE HIKES" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "BECTON, Judge.\nOn 21 December 1982, Donald Hikes sustained injuries resulting in, among other things, the loss of a leg when the motorcycle he was riding collided with the insured vehicle of Donald and Jane White. Donald Hikes and his wife Ethelene Hikes sued the Whites, but Donald Hikes\u2019 claim was settled when the South Carolina Insurance Company (Insurance Company) paid him $25,000, the policy limits, in full settlement of his damage claim. Because Ethelene Hikes contended that the Insurance Company is obligated to pay damages to her for loss of consortium caused by the personal injury sustained by her husband, the Insurance Company sought declaratory relief to determine its liability to Ethelene Hikes.\nJury trial was waived, and the case was submitted to the trial judge on stipulated facts and trial briefs. Considering the limits of liability for bodily injury set forth in the policy \u2014 $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident \u2014 the trial court concluded that the $25,000 payment to Donald Hikes exhausted the policy limits. Ethelene Hikes appeals from a judgment declaring that the Insurance Company had no obligation toward her.\nEthelene Hikes styles her two questions for review as follows:\nI. Did the trial court err in ruling that the plaintiff, South Carolina Insurance Company, was not required to answer defendant\u2019s interrogatories number 4, 5, 6a, 6b, 6c, 7, 8a, 8b, and 8c?\nII. Did the trial court err in ruling that the plaintiff insurance company was not obligated to pay Ethelene Hikes her damages for loss of consortium resulting from damages sustained by the husband of Ethelene Hikes?\nBecause of our resolution of the second issue, we need not address the first.\nThe trial court correctly ruled that the Insurance Company was not obligated to pay Ethelene Hikes damages for loss of consortium. First, the policy provides that the maximum award one person may receive for bodily injury sustained in any one accident is $25,000. Second, claims for loss of consortium are derivative in nature; they are not \u201cbodily injuries.\u201d\nThe policy issued to Donald White contained a \u201cDeclaration Page and Endorsement\u201d setting forth bodily injury liability coverage of \u201c$25,000 Ea. Person, $50,000 Ea. Acc.\u201d The \u201cLimits of Liability\u201d provision states, in relevant part, that:\nThe limit of liability shown in the Declarations for \u201ceach person\u201d for Bodily Injury Liability is our maximum limit of liability for all damages for bodily injury sustained by any one person in any one accident. Subject to this limit for \u201ceach person,\u201d the limit of liability shown in the Declarations for \u201ceach accident\u201d for Bodily Injury Liability is our maximum limit of liability for all damages for bodily injury resulting from any one auto accident. . . . This is the most we will pay as a result of any one accident regardless of the number of . . . [c]laims made. . . .\nNotwithstanding the policy\u2019s clear language, Ethelene Hikes points out that the policy does not state that the Insurance Company will limit its payment of damages to the insured party. She asserts that the \u201cInsuring Agreement\u201d provision \u201cmerely state[s] that [the Insurance Company] would pay damages \u2018for which the insured becomes legally responsible because of an auto accident.\u2019 \u201d\nEthelene Hikes has cited no North Carolina case authority in support of her argument, and we are not persuaded. The term \u201call damages\u201d used in the policy is all-inclusive. It includes not only direct damages for bodily injury sustained by Donald Hikes, but also any indirect or consequential damages for loss of consortium. Perhaps when the award to the person who sustained the direct bodily injury does not exhaust the maximum policy limits, a consequential or derivative damage claim for the difference may be maintained. But when, as in this case, the policy limit has been exhausted by the settlement of $25,000 paid to the person who sustained the direct bodily injury, all consequential or derivative damage claims for personal injuries are subsumed within the settlement award.\nAn analysis of the terms \u201cbodily injury\u201d and \u201cpersonal injury\u201d helps to clarify the point. Bodily injury refers to \u201c[p]hysical pain, illness or any impairment of physical condition.\u201d Black\u2019s Law Dictionary 707 (5th ed. 1979). \u201cPersonal injury,\u201d however, is \u201cused . . . in a much wider sense, and . . . includes] any injury which is an invasion of personal rights . . . .\u201d Id. at 707. In Sheffield v. American Indemnity Company, 245 S.C. 389, 394, 140 S.E. 2d 787, 790 (1965), the South Carolina Supreme Court relied on this distinction in considering whether the husband of a woman who had suffered physical injury could recover under a \u201cbodily injury\u201d insurance policy for loss of consortium, when the wife had already received the policy limit for bodily injury for one person:\nThe consequential damages sustained by the appellant because of the injuries to his wife are \u201cpersonal injuries\u201d and not \u201cbodily injuries.\u201d The contract of insurance, with which we are here concerned, agrees to indemnify for \u201cbodily injuries\u201d and the sum of $10,000.00 is the total limit of liability of the respondent for bodily injuries to one person as the result of any one accident.\nThe Court then held:\nWe conclude, as did the lower court, that since the wife of the appellant . . . sustained injury by reason of the negligent operation of an uninsured automobile and has been paid the full amount limited by the uninsured motorist endorsement in case of \u201cbodily injury\u201d to one person, her husband, who has sustained no physical injury, cannot recover from the insurer for consequential damages on account of loss of consortium and reimbursement for medical expenses arising out of the injury to his wife, since he has sustained no \u201cbodily injury\u201d within the meaning of the uninsured endorsement.\nId. at 397, 140 S.E. 2d at 791.\nSimilarly, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana held in Montgomery v. Farmers Insurance Group, 585 F. Supp. 618, 619 (1984):\nWhile two persons assert claims for damages, the claim of the second is for loss of consortium arising from the bodily injury of the first. [Plaintiffs] claim is part of the \u201cdamage arising out of bodily injury sustained by one person in any one occurrence\u201d and, therefore, is encompassed within the $25,000 limit. The $50,000 limit could apply only if [plaintiff] had sustained bodily injuries.\nSee also Biondino v. Southern Farm Bureau, 319 So. 2d 152 (Fla. App. 1975) (The Court acknowledged that the wife had sustained damages for loss of consortium, but concluded that the maximum amount of recovery was the limit as to one bodily injury and that the insurer had discharged its responsibility to the wife under the policy.), cert. denied, 330 So. 2d 14 (Fla. 1976). See generally Annot., 13 A.L.R. 3d 1228 (1967).\nHad Donald Hikes suffered no bodily injury, Ethelene Hikes would have suffered no injuries and would have had no claim. Her claim, in our view, is derivative. This position is supported by Nicholson v. Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital, 300 N.C. 295, 304, 266 S.E. 2d 818, 823 (1980), in which our Supreme Court held:\n[A] spouse may maintain a cause of action for loss of consortium due to the negligent actions of third parties so long as that action for loss of consortium is joined with any suit the other spouse may have instituted to recover for his or her personal injuries.\nIn sum, because the Insurance Company paid its limit of liability to Donald Hikes for his bodily injury, that damage award necessarily included Ethelene Hikes\u2019 claim for loss of consortium under the terms of the policy. We need not address the trial court\u2019s alleged error in quashing the interrogatories.\nFor the foregoing reasons, the judgment rendered is\nAffirmed.\nJudges Arnold and WELLS concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "BECTON, Judge." } ], "attorneys": [ "Wallace, Barwick, Landis, Rodgman & Bower, P.A., by Paul A. Rodgman, for plaintiff appellee.", "Duke and Brown, by John E. Duke, for defendant appellant." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "SOUTH CAROLINA INSURANCE COMPANY v. DONALD EUGENE WHITE, JANE WHITE and ETHELENE HIKES\nNo. 858SC1368\n(Filed 15 July 1986)\nInsurance \u00a7 110\u2014 automobile liability insurance \u2014 payment of policy limit for bodily injury \u2014 inclusion of claim for loss of consortium\nWhere an automobile liability policy limited coverage to $25,000 for \u201call damages\u201d for bodily injury sustained by any one person in one accident, and the policy limit of $25,000 was paid to the husband for his bodily injuries, the wife\u2019s derivative claim for loss of consortium was encompassed within the $25,000 limit, and the insurer was not obligated to pay the wife for loss of consortium.\nAppeal by defendant Ethelene Hikes from Llewellyn, Judge. Order entered 18 October 1985 in Superior Court, WAYNE County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 8 May 1986.\nWallace, Barwick, Landis, Rodgman & Bower, P.A., by Paul A. Rodgman, for plaintiff appellee.\nDuke and Brown, by John E. Duke, for defendant appellant." }, "file_name": "0122-01", "first_page_order": 150, "last_page_order": 154 }