Costa

This appeal involves the difficult task of construing the uninsured motorist act (Ins. Code, § 11580.2), as it stood (Stats. 1959, ch. 817, p. 2835) before the extensive amendments of 1961 and 1963.

Each of the plaintiffs, Costa and Leckie, lived in the home of his parents. Each father owned an automobile. Each ear was registered in the father’s name, and each father carried liability insurance with one of defendant companies. Each policy included an uninsured motorist clause which expressly covered relatives resident in the father’s household, but limited coverage of injuries caused by unknown (or “hit-run”) drivers to situations in which there is “physical contact” of the car with a car occupied by the named insured or such relative. The two sons jointly owned a third ear, registered in their names alone, on which neither carried any liability insurance. Both occupied that car when, driven by Costa, it turned over. Both sons assert injuries and allege that the accident was “caused by” another car which left the scene without stopping, and whose owner and operator are unknown. In this action they seek a declaration binding in the arbitration contemplated by the act, that they…