Son totaled car, got DUI, County got Car, Father got Insurance Payout
March 5, 2018
The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that a Minnesota law permitting the forfeiture of a vehicle involved in “designated offences” listed in the statute did not authorize the forfeiture of the insurance payout for the loss of that vehicle. The case is Briles v. 2013 GMC Terrain, No. A16-0768, 2018 Minn. LEXIS 22 (Feb. 14, 2018).
Russell Briles owned a 2013 GMC Terrain. In 2015 Briles' son got into a single vehicle accident while driving the 2013 GMC Terrain, causing heavy damage to the vehicle. The City police where the incident occurred impounded the vehicle and arrested the son for driving under the influence of alcohol. Soon after, the policy department served Briles with a timely notice of seizure and the intent to seek forfeiture of the vehicle as required by Minnesota statute. The notice depicted Briles rights under the statute, and informed that if no complaint for judicial determination of the forfeiture was filed within sixty days of the notice, Briles would lose the vehicle automatically. Briles failed to file the complaint within the sixty days. The County Attorney also sent a letter to Briles insurer, notifying them of the forfeiture of the vehicle and announcing their intent to seek forfeiture of the insurance proceeds as well. Briles did not learn about this letter to his insurance company until much later, after the sixty-day deadline, depicted by the statute, had lapsed. When he learned of this letter to his insurer, he filed a complaint for judicial determination challenging the County's forfeiture of the vehicle and the insurance proceeds.
The trial court dismissed the complaint concluding that because insurance proceeds were part of all “right, title, and interest” in a vehicle, that Briles had received proper notice of the insurance proceeds forfeiture in the letter that he received from the police. Since Briles allowed the sixty days to lapse after he received the notice, the trial court decided that his complaint was untimely.
Briles appealed, and the court of appeals affirmed the trial courts dismissal of the complaint. The court of appeals concluded, though, that insurance proceeds were not part of the “right, title, and interest” in a vehicle and were not subject to forfeiture. Minnesota's Supreme Court affirmed this decision.
Editor's Note: The court stated that insurance proceeds coming from an insurance policy that covers a vehicle that was subject to forfeiture were “not an interest in that vehicle” but were “payments due under an insurance contract.” The court also stated that an insurance contract was “not an interest in a vehicle” but a “contract about a vehicle.” Meaning that the right to receive payments that stem from an insurance contract arise not from the vehicle itself, but from the contract between the insured and the insurance company. The statutes referenced in this case are Minn. Stat. § 169A.63. The referenced statute has a provision that refers to the value of a vehicle as its retail value only, not referencing any other sources of payment for the vehicle, which helped the court make its decision.