In
Moore v. State Farm Mutual Ins. Co.,
Ky.,
Robin Reed was killed when the vehicle she was operating was struck from the rear by a vehicle owned and operated by Appellant John P. Daley. Reed was alone in the vehicle at the time of the accident. Her husband, Appellee James Reed, as administrator of her estate, filed a wrongful death action against Daley in the Boone Circuit Court. KRS 411.130. Upon rendition of this Court’s opinion in
Giuliani v. Guiler,
Ky.,
Limits of Liability
The sum of the coverage limits shown on the declarations page for this coverage for:
1. “each person” is the maximum we will pay for damages arising out of bodily injury to one person in any one motor vehicle accident, including damages sustained by anyone else as a result of that bodily injury.
2. “each accident” is the maximum we will pay for damages arising out of bodily injury to two or more persons in any one motor vehicle accident. This limit is subject to the limit for “each person.”
(Emphasis added, original emphasis deleted.)
The declarations page of the policy states the coverage limits as $100,000 for each person and $300,000 for each accident. 1 The policy defines “bodily injury” as “bodily injury, sickness, disease, or death.” James Reed, as administrator of the estate, settled the wrongful death action for $100,000, exhausting the coverage limit for “each person.” The children assert that their claims for loss of parental consortium are payable from the additional $200,000 coverage available for “each accident.” Relying on Moore, supra, the Boone Circuit Court held that the children’s claims fell within the “each person” coverage of Allstate’s policy. The Court of Appeals reversed. We now reverse the Court of Appeals and reinstate the Order of the Boone Circuit Court.
We note at the outset that virtually every jurisdiction that has addressed this issue has concluded that loss of consortium is not a separate “bodily injury” but is derivative of the injured party’s bodily in
The Reed chüdren rely primarily on the statement in
Giuliani v. Guiler, supra,
that a loss of consortium claim “is independent and separate from a wrongful death action and shall not be treated as a single claim.”
Of course, the existence of a cause of action for damages does not mean that those damages are
ipso facto
recoverable from a particular pohcy of insurance.
See Kentucky Central Ins. Co. v. Schneider,
Ky.,
The Reed chüdren attempt to distinguish
Moore v. State Farm, supra,
be
Under Daley’s Allstate policy, damages “arising out of bodily injury to one person in any one motor vehicle accident, including damages sustained by anyone else as a result of that bodily injury,” fall within the coverage limit for “each person.” Damages for wrongful death and damages for loss of consortium “derive from the same injury.” Blevins, supra, at 785. Thus, we conclude that the loss of consortium claims of the Reed children against Daley are derivative of the wrongful death claim of their mother’s estate and fall within the “each person” limit of Daley’s Allstate policy-
Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals and remand this case to the Boone Circuit Court for a final resolution of the Reed children’s claims against Daley.
Notes
. Actually, the declarations page states "300,-000 each occurrence.” No party to this action suggests that any significance should be given to the variance in the language of the declarations page ("occurrence”) and that of the policy ("accident”), presumably because if "occurrence” does not mean “accident," the $300,000 limit would not apply to any coverage described in the policy.
