Case Name: STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. Claudia BARTH, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1991-04-04
Citations: 579 So. 2d 154
Docket Number: No. 90-4
Parties: STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. Claudia BARTH, Appellee.
Judges: GRIFFIN, J., concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 579
Pages: 154–157

Head Matter:
STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. Claudia BARTH, Appellee.
No. 90-4.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.
April 4, 1991.
Rehearing Denied May 30, 1991.
Steven C. Davis, Naomi R. Boyle and David P. Rhodes of Haas, Boehm, Brown, Rigdon & Seacrest, P.A., Tampa, for appellant.
C. Clyde Atkins, Jr., Ocala, for appellee.

Opinion:
ANTOON, J., II, Associate Judge.
On the afternoon of November 3, 1987, Claudia Barth dropped her son off at a shopping mall in Ocala. While she awaited his return she remained in the driver's seat and read. An unknown man opened the passenger's door, got into the front seat and said, "Drive, bitch." When Barth refused to drive, the man grabbed her, forced her between the seats and repeatedly beat her on the head and neck. She struggled free and fell out the driver's door. The assailant then exited the passenger's door and said, "Okay, bitch, if that's the way you want it." He then walked to another vehicle, got in, started it, and drove away.
Barth filed suit against her insurance carrier, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company ("State Farm") for personal injury protection benefits as a result of the injuries she sustained in the attack. The trial court granted Barth's motion for summary judgment, determining her injuries arose out of the operation, maintenance, or use of her vehicle, and State Farm appealed. We agree with the trial court finding sufficient connection between the vehicle and the injury and therefore affirm.
Pursuant to section 627.736(1), Florida Statutes (1987), State Farm's policy provides personal injury protection benefits "for loss sustained . as a result of bodily injury . arising out of . use of a motor vehicle...." State Farm argues that Barth's loss did not arise out of her use of the insured vehicle, but that the vehicle was merely the situs of the injury. In cases where the only connection between the vehicle and the injury is that the vehicle is the situs of the injury, no personal injury protection coverage exists. Hernandez v. Protective Casualty Ins. Co., 473 So.2d 1241 (Fla.1985); Quarles v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., 533 So.2d 809 (Fla. 5th DCA 1988), rev. denied, 544 So.2d 201 (Fla.1989). State Farm relies on Reynolds v. Allstate Ins. Co., 400 So.2d 496 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981), a case in which an unidentified assailant, hiding in the back of the insured vehicle, struck the insured, rendering him unconscious, and then drove him several miles before ejecting him from his own vehicle causing additional injury. The court found the insured's injury did not arise out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the vehicle because there was no causal connection between the automobile and the insured's injury. The court explained the automobile was just the situs of injury which was not sufficient to entitle the insured to personal injury protection coverage.
In 1984, the Florida Supreme Court decided Gov't Employees Ins. Co. v. Novak, 453 So.2d 1116 (Fla.1984). The insured in Novak was in her vehicle when approached by a strange man asking for a ride. When she refused he fired a fatal shot into her face, pulled her from the vehicle, and drove off. The majority accepted the following reasoning of the district court in determining personal injury protection coverage was available:
[T]he shooting in this case was motivated by and a direct result of assailant's request to ride in the vehicle and the victim's refusal. [The assailant's] attempted use of the vehicle and the driver's refusal prompted the conduct that caused the injury. It must be remembered that we are not looking for a proximate causal relationship in the resolution of this case; rather the inquiry should be whether the attack upon the decedent arose out of, or flowed from, the use of the vehicle. The answer seems rather clear to us that the decedent's refusal to allow [the assailant] to ride in the car, which she was operating, demonstrates a sufficient nexus to meet the requirements of the rule requiring a causal relationship.
Novak v. Gov't Employees Ins. Co., 424 So.2d 178, 180 (Fla. 4th DCA 1983). In other words, in order for a loss to "arise out of" the use of a motor vehicle, for the purpose of determining whether personal injury protection coverage exists, "some nexus" between the vehicle and the injury is all that is required. 453 So.2d at 1119. Both dissenting opinions in Novak relied upon the reasoning of Reynolds. While the majority did not necessarily disapprove Reynolds, it pointed out that "[t]he decision there turned on the plaintiffs failure to allege facts sufficient to show the nexus between the use of the car and the injuries." 453 So.2d at 1119.
Claudia Barth has alleged sufficient facts to show the nexus between the Barth vehicle and the injury sustained. There is no way of knowing the ultimate plan or motive of Barth's deranged attacker. He may have wanted to switch vehicles to avoid police detection, he may have wanted a better operating car, or he may have just wanted to assault Barth. There are countless possibilities. We are certain, however, that he wanted her to drive him for whatever reason, and that her refusal to do so brought about the beating and injury. These facts are very similar to those in Novak which we find controlling here. The attack on Barth arose out of the use of the vehicle.
AFFIRMED.
GRIFFIN, J., concurs.
COWART, J., dissents with opinion.