6 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 752b
Insurance — Personal injury protection — For purposes of PIP benefits, an individual is the same as his or her fictitious name/sole proprietorship — Trial court properly found individual who was sole employee/owner of towing business which he operated under fictitious name was entitled to PIP coverage under policy insuring tow truck, notwithstanding insurer’s contention that business, not individual, was owner of truck
CONSOLIDATED PROPERTY AND CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. LUIS A. RODRIGUEZ, Appellee. 11th Judicial Circuit, Dade County, Appellate Division. Case No. 99-025 AP. Opinion filed September 21, 1999. An appeal from County Court for Dade County, Shelley J. Kravitz, Judge. Counsel: Robin S. Buckner, of Buckner & Shifrin, P.A., for Appellant. Patrice A. Talisman, of Hersch & Talisman, P.A., for Appellee.
(Before ROBERT P. KAYE, JUAN RAMIREZ JR., and CELESTE H. MUIR, JJ.)
(RAMIREZ, J.) This is an appeal from a non-final order which determined that the appellant/defendant was liable for personal injury protection benefits. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Fla.R.App.P. 9.130(a)(3)(iv). We affirm.
Luis Rodriguez operates a tow trucking business under the fictitious name of Rodriguez Towing Services. He is the sole employee/owner of the business. He purchased a commercial policy insuring his tow truck effective September 30, 1995 to September 30, 1996. The application showed Rodriguez as the only driver of the truck. On November 1, 1995, he was involved in an automobile accident. The defendant/insurer denied PIP coverage because he was not the owner of the truck, arguing below and on appeal that the owner of the truck is Rodriguez Towing Services. We hold that, for purposes of personal injury protection benefits, an individual is the same as his or her fictitious name/sole proprietorship. A sole proprietorship is defined as “[a] form of business in which one person owns all of the assets of the business in contrast to a partnership, trust or corporation. The sole proprietor is solely liable for all the debts of the business.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1392 (6th ed. 1990).
In Stevens v. International Builders of Fla., Inc., 207 So.2d 287 (Fla. 3d DCA 1968), cert. disch’d, 217 So. 2d 101 (Fla. 1968), the court rejected the argument that the plaintiff, doing business under W.G. Stevens Engineering Co., was an employee of his company, when it was neither a partnership nor was it incorporated. The court stated that “it is a logical anomaly to conceive of an individual as an entity apart from itself, whereas in certain circumstances, partnerships or corporations may exist independently of their component parts.” Id. at 290. Although this result was legislatively reversed in the context of worker’s compensation law, the common law principle remains that an individual and a sole proprietorship are one and the same under the law. (KAYE, and MUIR, JJ., concur).
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