The issue here is whether plaintiff may “stack” recovery under the uninsured motorist coverage of two separate automobile policies issued to him by the defendant. The trial court held that he could. Defendant appeals from that ruling.
The facts are undisputed. On May 18, 1972, plaintiff whilе driving a 1969 Chevrolet owned by him, came into collision with an automobile driven by McMillin. Plaintiff brought a personal injury suit against McMillin based on the latter’s negligence and received judgment for $25,000. McMillin carried no insurance and filed a petition in bankruptcy.
Being unable to satisfy the judgment against McMillin otherwise, plaintiff sought recovery under his own automobile policies. He had purchased two policies from defendant, one on the 1969 Chevrolet involved in the McMillin accident, and another policy on a 1971 Chevrolet also owned by plaintiff. Plaintiff paid a separаte premium for uninsured motorist coverage under each policy. There was a slightly lower premium charged under the second policy, but the parties have stipulated that the discount on the second premium was for sales purposes only and had no relevancy tо the scope of coverage.
Each policy covered loss caused by an uninsured motorist to an amount of $10,000 per person. Plaintiff filed suit against defendant, asking $10,000 under each of his two policies, for a total of $20,000. Defendant resisted liability for the $20,000 claimed, relying upоn Condition 8 contained in each of the two policies and which provides:
“8. OTHER INSURANCE IN THE COMPANY
With respect to any occurrence, accident or loss to which this and any other insurance policy or policies issued to the insured by the Company also apply, no payment shall bе made hereunder which, when added to any amount paid or payable under such other insurance policy or policies, would result in a total payment to the insured or any other person in excess of the highest applicable limit of liability under any one such policy.”
Plaintiff contends that the quoted Condition 8 is invalid as being in conflict with § 379.203, RSMo Supp.1971, V.A.M.S. Defendant denies any such conflict but concedes that it must lose if this Condition does in fact contravene the statute. The narrow issue determinative of this case is therefore the validity of the quoted pоlicy provision.
This same basic issue has been before the courts frequently in recent years. Commencing in 1957, the various states commenced the enactment of legislation requiring automobile liability insurance carriers to offer uninsured motorist coverage as a supplement to automobile liability insurance policies. By 1968, 46 states had adopted such statutes, and the inclusion of such coverage now has become mandatory in 15 states. Schermer, Automobile Liability Insurance, § 17.01. With the wide spread of this new type of insurance, it frequently happеned that more than one uninsured motorist coverage would apply to the same accident. To cope with that situation, the insurance industry engaged itself in finding and devising policy provisions to limit the maximum amount of permissible recovery to only one coverage. These limiting clauses soon came before the courts for adjudication.
Two basically conflicting lines of authority quickly developed. One line of cases sustained these policy limitations on the ground that the uninsured motorist statute had the purpose of affording a party injured by thе fault of an uninsured motorist the same financial protection that would have been available if the tort-feasor had complied with the *341 state’s financial responsibility law. The view of these cases is that policy provisions limiting recovery to a maximum amount equal to that required under the financial responsibility statute, regardless of the number of policies or coverages applicable to the accident, are perfectly consonant with that statutory purpose and that the liability limitation should be given effect. This concept is generally referred to as the “substitute coverage” theory. A secondary ground given in these opinions is that to rule otherwise would be to grant the injured party a windfall where more than one policy applies to the same accident.
However, a heavy majority of the jurisdictions which have passed upon this subject have rejected the approach just outlined and have held that these policy limitations are generally unenforceable as being contrary to the public policy expressed by the uninsured motorist statute. Thesе cases reason that the minimum amount of coverage specified by statute for each policy should not be subject to reduction by private contract. The cases adopting both the majority and minority rules are collected in the extensive annotation “Uninsurеd Motorist Insurance: Validity and Construction of ‘Other Insurance’ Provisions,”
The Missouri cases have adopted the majority view. The first case to be noted in this respect is Gordon v. Maupin,
“This court has held that where such [uninsured motorist] coverage has been provided, the insurer may not avoid its statutorily imposed liability by insertion in the policy of a limiting clause which restricts the insured from receiving the benefits of that coverage.”
The decision of this court in Webb v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.,
Defendant seeks to escape the force of Steinhaeufel on a number of grounds. First, it argues that Steinhaeufel involved only and was confined to a consideration of simply one kind of limiting clause which is generally known as an “excess-escape clause.” Defendant points out that a similar clause is contained in the policies issued by it to plaintiff in the present case, but in deference to the Steinhaeufel case, defendant here disclaims any reliance upon its excess-escape clausе. It insists, however, that Condition 8 is something distinctly different and is not ruled by Steinhaeufel.
The effort by defendant to whittle down the significance of
Steinhaeufel
so as to confine it to the particular limiting clause there presented is not persuasive. In the course of the
Steinhaeufel
opinion the court states at 1. c. 468, “the insurer may not avoid its statutorily imposed liability by insertion in the policy of
a limiting clause
which restricts the insured from receiving the benefit of that coverage” (emphasis added). The quoted language clearly means that no limiting clause, not just the particular clause there involved, can be given effect to keep the insured from receiving full benefit of the statutorily required coverage. This broad interpretation has been foreshadowed by the decision in French v. Farmers Insurance Company, Inc.,
“However, where the public policy оf the state will not permit an ‘other insurance’ excess-escape clause to limit the insured motorist coverage, such states have generally refused to permit that result to be achieved by resort to an ‘other insurance in the company’ clause. Booth v. Seaboard Fire & Marine Insurance Company,431 F.2d 212 (8th Cir. 1970), (applying Nebraska law). Smith v. Pacific Auto Ins. Co.,240 Or. 167 ,400 P.2d 512 (1965); Bryant v. State Farm Mutual Auto Ins. Co.,205 Va. 897 ,140 S.E.2d 817 (1965); Sellers v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company,185 So.2d 689 (Fla.1966).
******
“Since we have held that the Supreme Court of Missouri would apply the excess-escape clause of Condition 13 only after adjudicated damages had been recovered, we conclude that a similar аnd consistent position would be taken vis-a-vis the ‘other insurance in the company’ provisions of Condition 8.”
Defendant next argues that
Stein-haeufel
is different from the case at bar in that
Steinhaeufel
involved one policy carried by the host driver and a second policy carried by the injured party, whereas both policies in the present case were issued to and carried by the injured party. Defendant contends that stacking was granted in
Steinhaeufel
only because the insurance company there attempted to credit against its own liability payments
*343
that its insured had received from another source. In further amplification of this contention, dеfendant argues that an insurer should “have no right, by virtue of its contract with the insured, to interfere with that insured’s separate rights under a different contract” with a different company, but that it does have a right to contractually limit its obligation under its own policies, where more than one. This attempted distinction is without substance. Public policy requires that coverage in the statutory amount under each of the policies stand undiminished by contractual limitation, regardless of whether the policies are issued by the same or different insurers. Numerous cases have permitted stacking of coverage under multi-policies issued by the same company to the same party, despite limiting policy clauses of the type under consideration. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. v. Harper,
Defendant next аrgues that stacking was denied in Automobile Club Inter-Insur. Exch. v. Diebold, supra, where one insurance policy for separate premiums gave uninsured motorist coverage to two separate automobiles and under circumstances where both coverages applied tо the accident which gave rise to the plaintiff’s injuries. Defendant argues that the realities of this case are the same as Diebold and that the same result should be reached. In this respect defendant argues that, “it does seem unreasonable that where a company issues оne policy, but separately insures two different vehicles, charging separate premiums for separate coverages, that stacking of the two UM coverages may be denied and yet under a situation identical except for the fact that two separate policy numbers have been assigned to the separate automobiles, stacking UM coverages should be permitted.”
The answer to this protest is set forth in the Diebold opinion where the court expressly and emphatically pointed out that, “[o]ur uninsured motorist statute requires a minimum amount of coverage on each policy issued in this state.” (Emphasis in the original). On that basis the court expressly distinguished between the situation there involved of a single policy covering two automobiles as against the situation in the present case of separate policies covering each of the automobiles. The Diebold opinion goes on to underscore this distinction by the statement, “[w]e are not here concerned with the issue of ‘stacking’ whereby a party is allowed to recover from a second policy after exhausting the liability limits of the first.”
Whether
Diebold
was correctly decided or not, that decision cannot deny stacking in this case. Once the majority rule be adopted, as it has been in Missouri, it inevitably follows that Condition 8 in defendant’s two policies here involved is invalid and unenforceable. What the result should be in a one-policy multi-automobile situation is beside the point here. It should be mentioned that a number of other jurisdictions permit staсking in the mul-ti-policy situation, while at the same time denying stacking in the situation of a single policy covering more than one automobile. Hurles v. Republic Franklin Insurance Co.,
Finally, defendant cites a number of cases from other jurisdictions giving effect to anti-stacking policy limitations. All оf those cases fall into either the category of the one-policy multi-automobile situation or else in the category of cases which follow the minority rule on the general stacking problem. For reasons already discussed, neither category applies here.
To summarize, Condition 8 violates public policy and is therefore unenforceable. The trial court correctly so ruled.
Affirmed.
All concur.