[00:00:00] Speaker 03:
We have two more cases to hear an argument this morning.

[00:00:03] Speaker 03:
The next case is 24-1358, Scott v. Nationwide Agribusiness Insurance.

[00:00:13] Speaker 03:
Council for Appellant, if you would make your appearance and proceed, please.

[00:00:21] Speaker 01:
Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the Court.

[00:00:23] Speaker 01:
My name is Ben Norton.

[00:00:24] Speaker 01:
I'm appearing on behalf of Leoncha Scott, the appellant in this case.

[00:00:28] Speaker 01:
I'd like to reserve three minutes for rebuttal if possible.

[00:00:32] Speaker 01:
There are five main issues that I'd like to address through my argument this morning.

[00:00:37] Speaker 01:
First, Pacheco previously addressed the question on appeal, and ruling in nationwide's favor would require this court to overturn the decision of Pacheco.

[00:00:46] Speaker 01:
Second, the Colorado General Assembly

[00:00:48] Speaker 01:
readopted the same statutory requirements regarding liability coverage for resident relatives that were analyzed by Pacheco.

[00:00:55] Speaker 01:
This both underscores that Pacheco remains good law and that Pacheco correctly analyzed the legislative intent.

[00:01:03] Speaker 01:
Third, the district court misunderstood the statutory scheme.

[00:01:06] Speaker 01:
Fourth, Nationwide's argument would require this court to render numerous statutes meaningless and adopt a novel definition of the term insured.

[00:01:15] Speaker 01:
And five, the best source of public policy is the statute itself, which supports finding expansive liability coverage given the extensive cost to the public associated with operating motor vehicles.

[00:01:28] Speaker 01:
This case will turn on whether or not the court finds that Colorado has mandated liability coverage for resident relatives.

[00:01:36] Speaker 01:
If so, any policy language to the contrary would be void and unenforceable as an attempt to dilute, condition, or restrict that statutorily mandated coverage.

[00:01:45] Speaker 01:
If not, then nationwide would be free to condition that coverage through its policy language as it saw fit.

[00:01:54] Speaker 01:
Fortunately for us, this court analyzed this exact same question in Pacheco.

[00:01:59] Speaker 01:
While the ultimate decision on that case involved whether or not Ms.

[00:02:03] Speaker 01:
Pacheco was entitled to uninsured motorist benefits, the court had to first look to whether or not she was entitled to mandatory liability coverage as a resident relative.

[00:02:14] Speaker 02:
But that's not really in dispute here, is it?

[00:02:16] Speaker 02:
I read the brief to say both parties agree that Ms.

[00:02:18] Speaker 02:
Cahill was insured or fell under the definition of insured.

[00:02:23] Speaker 01:
So the reason that she is, that how she isn't insured is important, and I would posit it's dispositive in this case.

[00:02:32] Speaker 01:
If she isn't insured because Colorado has mandated liability coverage for her, then any policy language to the contrary

[00:02:39] Speaker 01:
such as the vehicle-based restriction in Nationwide's policy, would not be enforceable.

[00:02:43] Speaker 01:
If she is insured purely based on policy language, for example, if Nationwide went above the statutory requirements, then they would be able to condition that coverage through policy language.

[00:02:54] Speaker 03:
Doesn't the statute provide a definition of insured?

[00:02:58] Speaker 01:
It does, Your Honor.

[00:02:58] Speaker 03:
And doesn't that definition include a relative?

[00:03:01] Speaker 01:
It does, Your Honor.

[00:03:02] Speaker 03:
And she is a relative, right?

[00:03:04] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:03:05] Speaker 03:
Okay, she wasn't insured.

[00:03:07] Speaker 03:
I don't see that as being the question.

[00:03:09] Speaker 03:
I mean, the question really is what the policy language says, and the policy language pretty clearly says that she's excluded.

[00:03:17] Speaker 03:
Of course, I understand the policy argument that you're making, the policy writ large policy argument, but as it relates to that argument,

[00:03:24] Speaker 03:
Why is Pacheco even relevant?

[00:03:26] Speaker 03:
I mean, it is an uninsured motorist case which has its own statute, has its own policy reasonings.

[00:03:33] Speaker 03:
I will stop there.

[00:03:34] Speaker 03:
Explain to me why it really matters.

[00:03:37] Speaker 01:
Of course, Your Honor.

[00:03:38] Speaker 01:
So in order to determine that Ms.

[00:03:40] Speaker 01:
Pacheco was entitled to under-insured motorist coverage, the court in Pacheco had to first determine that she was entitled to mandatory liability coverage.

[00:03:49] Speaker 01:
In Pacheco, much like our case, Ms.

[00:03:51] Speaker 01:
Pacheco was not considered an insured based on the policy language.

[00:03:55] Speaker 01:
That's because the vehicle that she was driving at the time of the collision

[00:03:58] Speaker 01:
was not listed on the policy declarations.

[00:04:02] Speaker 01:
Therefore, the court looked to whether she initially fit the definition of insured, which of course she did as a resident relative.

[00:04:13] Speaker 01:
That's actually a definition of insured.

[00:04:14] Speaker 01:
At the time it was in 10-4-7-03, but it includes three categories.

[00:04:18] Speaker 01:
The named insured, resident relatives, and permissive users.

[00:04:23] Speaker 01:
She fit that definition as a resident relative.

[00:04:27] Speaker 01:
It then looked to the time 104705 and 104706, which mandate liability coverage, which make liability coverage compulsory.

[00:04:36] Speaker 01:
The court found that by codifying who must be insured and requiring compulsory liability coverage, the state of Colorado had mandated liability coverage

[00:04:45] Speaker 01:
for those class of individuals.

[00:04:47] Speaker 01:
Therefore, the attempt to dilute, restrict, or condition that mandatory coverage through policy language was void and unenforceable.

[00:04:55] Speaker 01:
Can you tell me what you mean by mandatory liability coverage?

[00:04:59] Speaker 01:
Of course, Your Honor.

[00:05:00] Speaker 01:
Where coverage has been mandated by statute, any policy language to the contrary will be unenforceable.

[00:05:09] Speaker 01:
But where does Colorado law mandate liability coverage?

[00:05:12] Speaker 01:
So Colorado law mandates liability coverage in CRS 619 and 620.

[00:05:16] Speaker 01:
619 requires the coverage as compulsory and 620 talks about the limits, the minimum limits of that policy.

[00:05:26] Speaker 04:
Well, can you point to any case where a vehicle-based liability coverage exclusion was avoided on the ground that it violates public policy?

[00:05:37] Speaker 01:
Certainly, Pacheco did that.

[00:05:38] Speaker 04:
That's not a vehicle liability case.

[00:05:42] Speaker 04:
That's an uninsured motorist case.

[00:05:44] Speaker 01:
So if I could explain how we got to the UM in Pacheco.

[00:05:48] Speaker 01:
I'm sorry.

[00:05:49] Speaker 01:
I'll explain how we got to the uninsured motorist coverage from the liability coverage in Pacheco.

[00:05:56] Speaker 01:
Pacheco initially determined that the plaintiff was entitled to statutorily mandated liability policy, and then extended UM benefits because the class of individuals entitled to UM benefits must be coextensive to the class of individuals entitled to the liability policy.

[00:06:14] Speaker 01:
They first determined that she was part of it.

[00:06:16] Speaker 04:
It was an uninsured motorist issue.

[00:06:19] Speaker 01:
I disagree, Your Honor.

[00:06:20] Speaker 01:
It explicitly held that

[00:06:23] Speaker 01:
The statutory definition of insured codified the class of individuals entitled to liability coverage.

[00:06:29] Speaker 03:
And that's not disputed here.

[00:06:31] Speaker 03:
And therefore, as in this case, as in Pacheco, based upon the statute

[00:06:40] Speaker 03:
This woman is insured.

[00:06:42] Speaker 03:
Okay, fine.

[00:06:43] Speaker 03:
Then the question becomes for this case, whether the policy would provide coverage.

[00:06:50] Speaker 03:
In Pageco, you had the initial question, is she insured?

[00:06:55] Speaker 03:
But then the question simply became, was there a correlation between liability insurance and uninsured motorist insurance?

[00:07:04] Speaker 03:
The answer was no.

[00:07:05] Speaker 03:
And that was deemed to be a violation of public policy.

[00:07:08] Speaker 03:
What is missing?

[00:07:09] Speaker 03:
Where am I missing?

[00:07:11] Speaker 03:
What is wrong with that statement?

[00:07:14] Speaker 01:
So that statement is slightly incorrect, Your Honor.

[00:07:18] Speaker 01:
OK.

[00:07:18] Speaker 01:
How so?

[00:07:18] Speaker 01:
So Colorado courts have consistently found that UM coverage must be extended to anyone covered under the liability portion of the policy.

[00:07:29] Speaker 04:
And that is why- Not anybody who's an insured.

[00:07:32] Speaker 01:
Anyone who is an insured under the liability portion of the policy.

[00:07:37] Speaker 01:
And if I can briefly- sorry.

[00:07:40] Speaker 01:
That gets to one issue that we've had in this case, is that insured has traditionally been defined as one who is entitled to coverage.

[00:07:48] Speaker 01:
And that is why most case law focuses on whether someone is an insured or not.

[00:07:54] Speaker 01:
Nationwide in this case, it's taken the position that someone can be both an insured but not entitled to coverage.

[00:08:00] Speaker 01:
That is a new and novel definition that is frankly at odds even with its own policy language.

[00:08:06] Speaker 04:
It's not novel at all.

[00:08:07] Speaker 03:
Why is that at odds with its own policy language?

[00:08:10] Speaker 03:
In fact, its policy language contemplates that somebody would be insured, but you're just not driving the right car.

[00:08:17] Speaker 03:
I mean, you're insured in the sense that you fall within a class

[00:08:23] Speaker 03:
of insurers that would be, if other conditions are met, eligible for coverage.

[00:08:30] Speaker 03:
And so you were gonna explain to me what was wrong with my relationship with Pacheco, because it seemed to me that we established the class of insurers, but then the next question, and the most salient question in Pacheco was, was the same body of, the same limits, the same amount of coverage

[00:08:50] Speaker 03:
available to both classifications, liability and uninsured motorists.

[00:08:56] Speaker 03:
Pacheco said no, it was not.

[00:09:01] Speaker 03:
But that question is not an issue here.

[00:09:03] Speaker 03:
We have a separate question.

[00:09:04] Speaker 03:
The separate question is, once you establish the classification of insured, then what does a auto-centric policy do to that?

[00:09:15] Speaker 03:
What coverage follows from that?

[00:09:17] Speaker 01:
I disagree with the initial premise there, where if someone fits the statutory definition of insured, one, through policy language, cannot restrict coverage to that individual.

[00:09:35] Speaker 01:
The very reason that the Colorado General Assembly has adopted a definition of insured is to determine who must receive coverage under that policy.

[00:09:48] Speaker 01:
In Colorado, case law has been extremely clear that where there is a statutory mandate of coverage,

[00:09:54] Speaker 01:
Any attempt to restrict that coverage through policy language is void and unenforceable.

[00:09:58] Speaker 02:
What do we do with the statute in Colorado, though, that also requires a policy to designate the vehicles for liability coverage?

[00:10:05] Speaker 02:
This is why I was asking about mandatory liability.

[00:10:08] Speaker 02:
It's compulsory.

[00:10:09] Speaker 02:
There may be minimum amounts.

[00:10:10] Speaker 02:
But it also says you have to designate the vehicles for liability.

[00:10:13] Speaker 02:
That's different than uninsured motorists, right?

[00:10:15] Speaker 01:
So I disagree.

[00:10:16] Speaker 01:
It is not different.

[00:10:17] Speaker 01:
And here's why.

[00:10:18] Speaker 01:
Because those two provisions can be read in harmony with one another rather than to the exclusion of one another.

[00:10:23] Speaker 01:
So there are three categories of insureds on the statute, named insured, resident relatives, and permissive users, and permissive users of the designated motor vehicles.

[00:10:31] Speaker 01:
Obviously, to know who is a permissive user, the vehicle must be designated on the policy.

[00:10:37] Speaker 01:
So it's not if you have to designate the policy, then these other classification of statutory insureds no longer get coverage.

[00:10:45] Speaker 01:
It's both.

[00:10:46] Speaker 01:
They are read together.

[00:10:47] Speaker 01:
It's both the named insured, the resident relatives, and the permissive users.

[00:10:52] Speaker 01:
And frankly, that same language that's now in 619, that language was present in CRS 104705, analyzed by this court in Pacheco.

[00:11:07] Speaker 01:
The fact that the Colorado General Assembly has chosen to maintain those same statutory requirements underscores that they believe that Pacheco correctly analyzed that legislative intent.

[00:11:18] Speaker 01:
Pacheco was decided in 2009, and the General Assembly is presumed to be aware of case law when it's adopting or amending statutes.

[00:11:26] Speaker 04:
Now, didn't your client also have insurance on her own car?

[00:11:32] Speaker 01:
Our client did not have uninsured motor coverage, if that's what you're asking.

[00:11:37] Speaker 01:
I'm sorry.

[00:11:37] Speaker 01:
There was another insurance policy.

[00:11:39] Speaker 04:
That's right.

[00:11:39] Speaker 04:
And it covered the car that the person, your client was in, that she was driving.

[00:11:46] Speaker 01:
Not my client's vehicle, but the vehicle that hit her.

[00:11:53] Speaker 04:
Okay, so we provided some coverage for her because she was driving.

[00:11:57] Speaker 01:
There was a statement of policy on that.

[00:11:58] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:12:00] Speaker 02:
That's right.

[00:12:02] Speaker 02:
Counsel, you're, I guess, maybe noting, at least we're probing into, with some suspicion, you're reading a Pacheco.

[00:12:09] Speaker 02:
If we distinguish Pacheco and say that applies to uninsured motorists but not to cases like this for liability, do we lose?

[00:12:16] Speaker 01:
I don't think you'd lose, but I do think the reasoning of Pacheco is very informative.

[00:12:21] Speaker 02:
I understand you're arguing Pacheco is essentially just positive here, but I'm saying...

[00:12:26] Speaker 02:
If we distinguish Pacheco and say we think that the rationale that it violated public policy as it applied to uninsured motorist only, when that's sort of the core holding of Pacheco, if we distinguish that case, Judge Kelly asks you if you had any other case that really made your argument.

[00:12:43] Speaker 02:
You said only Pacheco.

[00:12:44] Speaker 02:
So if we distinguish Pacheco, do you lose this appeal?

[00:12:47] Speaker 01:
It's in dicta, but the Colorado Supreme Court

[00:12:51] Speaker 01:
in the shelter case, I give you the specific site, acknowledges that liability coverage would be mandated for those defined as insureds, but that was not the ultimate determination of that case.

[00:13:08] Speaker 01:
So the effect of

[00:13:11] Speaker 03:
ruling in your favor under Pacheco, if I understand it, would be to essentially render void all of these auto-centric liability policies, right?

[00:13:24] Speaker 01:
It would require that those policies comply with the statutory definition of insured.

[00:13:29] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:13:30] Speaker 01:
But on that point, I would note that this was the case under de Herrera, cited by the Colorado Supreme Court, where insurance carriers said, hey, we've not been extending UM benefits, for example, to all, regardless of the vehicle involved.

[00:13:47] Speaker 01:
This is going to be a sea change for what we have to do.

[00:13:50] Speaker 01:
And the court there said,

[00:13:51] Speaker 01:
those sorts of policy arguments can't be elevated above the statute.

[00:13:56] Speaker 01:
And in fact, de Herrera was applied retroactively.

[00:13:59] Speaker 03:
And my question was not designed to suggest to the contrary.

[00:14:01] Speaker 03:
I'm just trying to understand.

[00:14:03] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:14:03] Speaker 01:
You're correct, Your Honor.

[00:14:04] Speaker 01:
I would know with respect to the holding of, and actually, if I could reserve the rest of my time for a bubble.

[00:14:26] Speaker 00:
May it please the Court?

[00:14:27] Speaker 00:
Gary Palombo for Nationwide Agribusiness, the Appellee.

[00:14:32] Speaker 00:
The question in this case is whether Nationwide Insurance Policy's limitation of an insurance liability coverage to coverage for liability arising from the use of certain vehicles is permitted under Colorado law.

[00:14:49] Speaker 00:
As relevant here, the nationwide policy provides coverage for liability arising from the use of, among others, the automobiles listed in the policy and then permissive use of other vehicles.

[00:15:04] Speaker 00:
Here, Ms.

[00:15:04] Speaker 00:
Cahill, the tortfeasor in the case, was driving her own car

[00:15:09] Speaker 00:
It was not listed in the policy because it was her son's policy.

[00:15:14] Speaker 00:
She was a resident relative of her son's house.

[00:15:18] Speaker 00:
And it was insured by another insurance company.

[00:15:21] Speaker 00:
And that insurance company indeed paid out on that policy to the appellant here, Ms.

[00:15:28] Speaker 00:
Scott, who was the injured person in the car accident.

[00:15:32] Speaker 00:
The nationwide policy does not cover the tort fuser, Ms.

[00:15:36] Speaker 00:
Cahill, in this case.

[00:15:39] Speaker 00:
because she was not driving one of the cars listed in the policy.

[00:15:45] Speaker 00:
And she was driving her own vehicle, which was not owned by, excuse me, not listed on this policy.

[00:15:55] Speaker 00:
So that was excluded.

[00:15:57] Speaker 00:
It was owned but not insured under the policy.

[00:16:01] Speaker 00:
As Judge Martinez noted in the lower court decision here,

[00:16:06] Speaker 00:
citing the Colorado Court of Appeals decision in Robles.

[00:16:10] Speaker 00:
These limitations, courts referred to them as auto-centric, they are consistent with the express purpose of liability insurance, which is to protect the insured from liability for damages arising from the use of specific automobiles.

[00:16:28] Speaker 00:
So the requirements for liability insurance in Colorado

[00:16:33] Speaker 00:
are in 10-4-620 and 10-4-619.

[00:16:38] Speaker 00:
The only requirement in 10-4-620 is that the coverage afforded be $25,000 per person and $50,000 per occurrence for liability, bodily injury liability insurance and $15,000 for property damage.

[00:16:58] Speaker 00:
The nationwide policy met both of those requirements.

[00:17:02] Speaker 02:
Council, can I ask you about the statutory provision that requires a policy to designate the vehicles?

[00:17:08] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:17:08] Speaker 02:
The Appellant's Council said, well, you easily read that in harmony with the definition of insured, because if you're going to cover as insured those persons who have permission to use the vehicle, you have to say what vehicle that is.

[00:17:21] Speaker 02:
And that's the only reason for that statute to being.

[00:17:24] Speaker 02:
What's your response to that?

[00:17:25] Speaker 00:
I think our Colorado appellate decisions

[00:17:29] Speaker 00:
explain in much greater detail the reason for that, and at the base of liability insurance, it's vehicle oriented.

[00:17:37] Speaker 00:
The premiums are decided based on what vehicle is insured, how many vehicles are insured.

[00:17:44] Speaker 00:
That is the

[00:17:46] Speaker 00:
purpose of the insurance.

[00:17:48] Speaker 00:
I think Judge Martinez mentioned that in his decision in talking about liability insurance follows the vehicle, whereas UIM insurance, by contrast, follows the person.

[00:17:59] Speaker 00:
And we could certainly have a statute in Colorado that says every driver has to have insurance that covers that driver no matter what he's driving.

[00:18:10] Speaker 00:
But that's not the concept of liability insurance.

[00:18:12] Speaker 00:
It never has been.

[00:18:13] Speaker 00:
You know, this goes

[00:18:16] Speaker 00:
This owned but uninsured limitation on liability coverage has been confirmed by the Colorado courts going back at least 50 years, at least to the Ertado decision that we cited.

[00:18:30] Speaker 00:
And every time it's come up since,

[00:18:33] Speaker 00:
It's consistently been affirmed.

[00:18:35] Speaker 00:
I mean, to address the question that was raised to my counterpart here, there is no known case in Colorado jurisprudence where the owned but uninsured limitation has been declared void in a liability insurance context.

[00:18:54] Speaker 00:
The difference, I mean, the reason this came up with the uninsured motorist is

[00:18:59] Speaker 00:
when an insurer tried to put that limitation into the definition of an insured.

[00:19:06] Speaker 00:
Then it ran afoul of the uninsured motorist concept because that part of the statute says every driver, everybody operating a motor vehicle who has insurance needs to be insured in case they're hit by an uninsured motorist.

[00:19:24] Speaker 00:
They need to have coverage for that.

[00:19:27] Speaker 00:
So that goes to the person, to the insured.

[00:19:30] Speaker 00:
So in the definition of an insured,

[00:19:32] Speaker 00:
you can't put a restriction on what vehicle they're operating.

[00:19:36] Speaker 00:
That came up in Pacheco and it came up also in the De Herrera case.

[00:19:42] Speaker 00:
But that's distinct from the situation where that owned but uninsured limitation is put into the coverage section of the liability insurance.

[00:19:53] Speaker 00:
And in that context, it has never been voided.

[00:19:57] Speaker 00:
And you look at our Colorado statutes,

[00:20:00] Speaker 00:
6-10-623, subsection 1, says that liability insurance can have any exclusion or limitation that does not run afoul of the liability insurance law.

[00:20:15] Speaker 00:
This does not, again, we go back at least 50 years to see that it has been sustained in every circumstance when it has come up in those settings.

[00:20:28] Speaker 00:
So as the Court noted, the Pacheco case and frankly all the other cases relied on by the appellant here are uninsured motorist cases, and that's the big distinction.

[00:20:40] Speaker 00:
You can't limit the insured by what vehicle they're in.

[00:20:45] Speaker 00:
But you can, when you're talking about liability coverage, limit the extent of coverage.

[00:20:51] Speaker 00:
There was a very thorough analysis of this in the Anderson case.

[00:20:55] Speaker 00:
That also was a UIM case, but the Colorado Court of Appeals looked at the whole statutory scheme in that case, talking about the difference between liability insurance and uninsured motorist insurance.

[00:21:10] Speaker 00:
And they said there, you know, just because a person is insured for liability doesn't mean they're insured for all circumstances.

[00:21:19] Speaker 00:
And indeed, this comports with 10-4-623 where the legislature is saying, if we haven't said you can't exclude something from liability insurance in a statute,

[00:21:31] Speaker 00:
you can exclude it.

[00:21:33] Speaker 00:
And indeed, there are many exclusions from liability insurance in the policy, and they're not contradictory to any Colorado statute.

[00:21:45] Speaker 03:
So the statute you're referencing is 42-7413?

[00:21:48] Speaker 03:
That's another one.

[00:21:49] Speaker 00:
It's the one where I'm talking about any exclusion is 10-4-623.

[00:21:55] Speaker 00:
Okay.

[00:21:56] Speaker 00:
But 42-7-413 indeed is another part of the entire statutory scheme in Colorado, and that is compelling insurance companies when they write liability insurance,

[00:22:10] Speaker 00:
to write it for specific vehicles.

[00:22:13] Speaker 00:
Again, getting to the vehicle-centered concept of liability insurance versus the person-oriented concept of uninsured motorist insurance.

[00:22:24] Speaker 03:
You didn't cite 413 to the district court, right?

[00:22:29] Speaker 03:
That's correct.

[00:22:30] Speaker 03:
And does your argument turn on that?

[00:22:33] Speaker 00:
No, no, because it's consistent with 10-4-619 and 10-4-620.

[00:22:40] Speaker 00:
Those are the two statutes that Judge Martinez

[00:22:44] Speaker 00:
quoted in his decision, both of which say that with regard to liability insurance, it's to ensure said vehicle, a particular vehicle, and the coverage turns on whether the liability was incurred during the operation of said vehicle.

[00:23:04] Speaker 00:
So we pointed out in the appellate brief 42-7-413 as just additional

[00:23:13] Speaker 00:
indication in the Colorado statutes, because the discussion here is, does this violate the public policy of Colorado?

[00:23:20] Speaker 00:
And I think overwhelmingly, looking at the statutes, there's a consistent thread here that liability insurance is vehicle-centric and that these owned but uninsured limitations on coverage have been historically and are still valid limitations on the liability coverage.

[00:23:42] Speaker 00:
I say we're not aware of any Colorado case at any point in time under any statutory scheme that has ever avoided one of those provisions in a liability policy.

[00:24:00] Speaker 00:
So we have here an insured who

[00:24:04] Speaker 00:
you know, Ms.

[00:24:06] Speaker 00:
Cahill, the tortfeasor, is insured under the nationwide policy, but the liability coverage simply does not extend to her because she was not operating a vehicle designated for coverage in the policy.

[00:24:24] Speaker 00:
If the Court has no more questions, I think we can submit this and request that the judgment of the District Court be affirmed.

[00:24:33] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Council.

[00:24:46] Speaker 01:
And there's just a few quick points I'd like to hit on rebuttal.

[00:24:50] Speaker 01:
To begin with, the portion of Pacheco that we're relying on is not dicta.

[00:24:54] Speaker 01:
It was part of the holding this Court has cited to Robert Garner's The Law of Judicial Precedent.

[00:25:00] Speaker 01:
Any determination of a matter of law that is pivotal to the Court's ultimate determination is part of the holding.

[00:25:05] Speaker 01:
That is what happened in Pacheco.

[00:25:07] Speaker 01:
But more broadly, I'd like to point to the fact that nationwide's argument that it's entitled to

[00:25:16] Speaker 01:
Limit coverage for insurers based on any policy language that sees fit would render numerous statutes meaningless.

[00:25:22] Speaker 01:
Not only would it call into question what the very purpose of defining an insured by statute is, but it would also call into question these specific limitations that are written into part six of Title X. So for example,

[00:25:38] Speaker 01:
629 allows for exclusions of an insurer based on non-payment of premiums.

[00:25:44] Speaker 01:
630 allows to exclude a named driver specifically based on driving history or something like that.

[00:25:51] Speaker 01:
608 allows for carve-outs for specific exemptions.

[00:25:56] Speaker 01:
There would, of course, be no need for any of those provisions if you're allowed to just limit coverage as you see fit.

[00:26:03] Speaker 01:
And I see my time is up, so if there are no other questions.

[00:26:06] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Council.

[00:26:07] Speaker 03:
The case is submitted.

[00:26:08] Speaker 03:
Appreciate the arguments.