Title: USAA Casualty Insurance Company v. Hensley
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 950729
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: January 12, 1996

Present:  Carrico, C.J., Compton, Stephenson, Lacy, Hassell, and 
Keenan, JJ., and Whiting, Senior Justice 
 
USAA CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY 
                                            OPINION BY 
v.   Record No. 950729 
SENIOR JUSTICE HENRY H. WHITING 
                                           January 12, 1996 
MICHAEL STEVEN HENSLEY, et al. 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF FAIRFAX COUNTY 
 
Gerald B. Lee, Judge 
 
 
In this appeal, we decide whether an insured's family 
automobile liability policy provided liability coverage for a 
named operator's use of a non-owned automobile. 
 
I. 
 
In 1989, Vanessa Magdelena Hoang and her husband, John Paul 
Hoang, moved from California to Jidda, Saudi Arabia where Mr. 
Hoang was employed by Saudi Airlines.  While in Jidda, the Hoangs 
lived in a house with their four children. 
 
No further education was available to the Hoang children in 
Saudi Arabia after the ninth grade.  Accordingly, the parents 
sent their two oldest children, Paul and George, to live with 
Mrs. Hoang's mother, Thaun Tuk Jones, in Centreville, Fairfax 
County, Virginia to continue their education. 
 
George, who was 15 at the time, came to Centreville in the 
summer of 1990.  In March 1992, Michelle Jones, Mrs. Hoang's 
half-sister, also came to live in the Centreville single family 
house with her mother, Paul, George, and two of her mother's 
other children. 
 
George ate, slept, and kept his belongings at his 
grandmother's house, and he spent all but one of his vacations 
there.  While living in his grandmother's house, George assisted 
 
 
 
 
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around the house by running errands, cleaning parts of the house, 
mowing the lawn, and cooking.  He worked in the Centreville area 
during the summer of 1992, using his grandmother's address for 
employment and tax purposes. 
 
Excluding the 1991-92 school year, when his parents sent him 
to a military academy in Front Royal, and a vacation to various 
cities in the United States with his parents in 1992, George 
lived continuously in his grandmother's house.  He never visited 
his parents in Saudi Arabia after he came to Virginia. 
 
George talked on the telephone frequently and corresponded 
infrequently with his parents in Saudi Arabia while he was living 
in Virginia.  Mrs. Hoang returned from Saudi Arabia to her 
mother's house several times a year for visits of several days 
each to oversee her two sons' activities.  She and her husband 
continued to support George and pay his educational expenses 
while he was in Virginia. 
 
In July 1992, Mrs. Hoang contacted representatives of USAA 
Casualty Insurance Company (USAA)
* seeking automobile liability 
coverage on a Volvo automobile she had recently purchased in 
Virginia, primarily for use by Paul and George.  Based on 
information furnished by Mrs. Hoang, USAA listed her on the 
policy as the named insured, and listed her, her husband, Paul, 
 
     
*Although Hensley described USAA as "United States 
Automobile Association" in the caption of his "Complaint for 
Declaratory Judgment," the parties agree that the policy was 
issued by USAA Casualty Insurance Company, a wholly owned 
subsidiary of United Services Automobile Association. 
 
 
 
 
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and George as the operators of the insured vehicle.  
Additionally, Mrs. Hoang advised USAA that the insured vehicle 
was to be principally garaged at Mrs. Jones's house and that each 
operator had a Virginia driver's license.  Shortly after buying 
the Volvo and the USAA insurance, Mrs. Hoang traded the Volvo for 
an Oldsmobile automobile, and USAA transferred coverage to the 
Oldsmobile. 
 
In November 1992, Michelle asked George to take her Porsche 
automobile (covered by a separate USAA liability policy issued to 
Michelle) to a filling station to be refueled.  While driving the 
Porsche to the filling station, George collided with a car driven 
by Michael Steven Hensley. 
 
Hensley was injured in the collision and brought a personal 
injury action against George.  Hensley also brought this 
declaratory judgment action against USAA, Mrs. Hoang, Michelle, 
and George to obtain a declaration that the USAA policy on Mrs. 
Hoang's Oldsmobile provided additional liability coverage to 
George in the personal injury action beyond the coverage provided 
by the USAA policy on the Porsche. 
 
Upon attaining the age of 18 and after the accident, George 
registered to vote in Virginia and applied for admission to a 
state university, where he was accepted as an in-state student 
and charged the reduced tuition rate for Virginia residents. 
 
After hearing evidence ore tenus and considering the 
depositions of additional witnesses, the trial court entered a 
 
 
 
 
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declaratory judgment in conformity with Hensley's request.  USAA 
appeals. 
 
II. 
 
We resolve the issue in this appeal by considering the 
pertinent language in the USAA policy on the Oldsmobile.  
Liability coverage for the operation of a non-owned automobile is 
provided to the named insured or "any relative" of the named 
insured.  And a "relative" is defined in the policy as "a 
relative of the named insured who is a resident of the same 
household."  (Emphasis added.) 
 
USAA argues that, because George was a resident of his 
grandmother's household in Centreville, he was not a resident of 
the same household as his mother.  Thus, USAA argues that George 
was not a relative as defined in the policy.  On the other hand, 
the other parties successfully contended in the trial court, and 
contend on this appeal, that George qualified as a relative under 
the policy definition because he was a resident of his mother's 
household in Saudi Arabia.  We agree with USAA. 
 
III. 
 
We have considered similar policy language in a number of 
other cases.  In doing so, we said: 
 
 
The meaning of "resident" or "residence", a 
prolific source of litigation, depends upon the context 
in which it is used. . . .  Here, we must interpret the 
meaning of "resident", when followed by "of the same  
household".  The word "household", . . . connotes a 
settled status; a more settled or permanent status is 
indicated by "resident of the same household" than 
would be indicated by "resident of the same house or 
apartment". 
 
 
 
 
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Allstate Ins. Co. v. Patterson, 231 Va. 358, 361, 344 S.E.2d 890, 
892 (1986)(quoting State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Smith, 206 
Va. 280, 285, 142 S.E.2d 562, 565-66 (1965)).  Continuing, we 
also said: 
 
 
Whether the term "household" or "family" is used, 
the term embraces a collection of persons as a single 
group, with one head, living together, a unit of 
permanent and domestic character, under one roof; a 
"collective body of persons living together within one 
curtilage, subsisting in common and directing their 
attention to a common object, the promotion of their 
mutual interests and social happiness". 
 
Patterson, 231 Va. at 362, 344 S.E.2d at 892 (quoting Smith, 206 
Va. at 285 n.6, 142 S.E.2d at 565-66 n.6). 
 
And, as we noted in Patterson, a person's intent is 
important in determining whether he qualifies as a resident of a 
household.  231 Va. at 363, 344 S.E.2d at 893.  However, since 
George was an unemancipated minor at the time of the accident, we 
must also consider his parents' intent in this determination.  
See Code § 16.1-334 (unemancipated minor cannot establish his own 
residence); see also Code § 16.1-333 (parent must consent to 
minor's emancipation); Brumfield v. Brumfield, 194 Va. 577, 581-
82, 74 S.E.2d 170, 173-74 (1953) (intent of parent determines 
whether minor is emancipated), overruled on other grounds by 
Smith v. Kauffman, 212 Va. 181, 183 S.E.2d 190 (1971).  Here, 
there is no evidence of an intent on the part of George or his 
parents that he would return to Saudi Arabia to rejoin their 
household there.  On the contrary, the evidence indicates that 
 
 
 
 
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his parents intended that George become a part of his 
grandmother's household until they returned from Saudi Arabia.  
There is no evidence that George left any of his belongings in 
Saudi Arabia, that he maintained a room in his former residence 
there, that he ever returned to visit, or that he had anything 
more than telephone and mail contact with his parents while they 
were in Saudi Arabia. 
 
After George came to live with his grandmother, his parents 
saw him only in Virginia and on their vacation in the summer of 
1992.  His parents supplied George with a car titled in Virginia 
and registered at his grandmother's address, and they permitted 
him to get a Virginia driver's license.  Furthermore, George was 
allowed to spend his vacations in Virginia, work there during the 
summer, and apply for admission to a Virginia university as a 
Virginia resident.  Additionally, George's parents must have 
known that George was more than a mere boarder at his 
grandmother's house, as evidenced by his activities in 
contributing to the common burdens associated with the operation 
of a household. 
 
Even though George testified that his grandmother's house 
was not his "home," the extended period of his residence there 
with no apparent intention on his or his parents' part for him to 
return to his parents' home in Saudi Arabia, as well as his 
activities at his grandmother's house, gainsay this conclusion.  
Instead, we think this evidence indicates that George was living 
 
 
 
 
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with his relatives in a unit of permanent and domestic character, 
subsisting in common, in which each household member, including 
George, participated in the promotion of their mutual interests 
and social happiness.  See Patterson, 231 Va. at 362, 344 S.E.2d 
at 892.  Under these facts and circumstances, we conclude that 
reasonable persons could not differ in concluding that, at the 
time of the collision, George was a member of his grandmother's 
household in Virginia, and was no longer a member of his mother's 
household in Saudi Arabia.  Accordingly, we think that the trial 
court erred in concluding that Mrs. Hoang's USAA policy on the 
Oldsmobile provided additional coverage against George's possible 
liability to Hensley. 
 
Therefore, we will reverse the trial court's judgment and 
enter final judgment in this Court declaring that George was not 
covered by Mrs. Hoang's USAA policy when he operated his aunt's 
Porsche and collided with Hensley. 
 
Reversed and final judgment.