Title: Herrman v. Folkerts
Citation: 202 Kan. 116, 446 P.2d 834
Docket Number: 45,153
State: Kansas
Issuer: Kansas Supreme Court
Date: November 9, 1968

202 Kan. 116 (1968)
446 P.2d 834
PAUL HERRMAN, Plaintiff, Appellee,
v.
HARVEY FOLKERTS, Defendant, and NATIONAL FARMERS UNION PROPERTY AND CASUALTY COMPANY, Garnishee Defendant, Appellant.
No. 45,153

Supreme Court of Kansas.
Opinion filed November 9, 1968.
J. Eugene Balloun, of Great Bend, argued the cause, and H. Lee Turner and Max E. Eberhart, both of Great Bend, were with him on the briefs for the appellant.
Ivan D. Krug, of La Crosse, argued the cause and was on the briefs for the appellee.
The opinion of the court was delivered by
HATCHER, C.:
This appeal stems from a controversy over the application of an exclusionary clause in a liability insurance policy.
The facts are very limited. It would appear that there was a stipulation as to the facts in the court below which was not made a part of the record on appeal. We must, therefore, consider the facts as stated by the trial court in its memorandum opinion as follows:
An action was brought by the plaintiff, Paul Herrman, to recover for the damages to his tractor. The petition, omitting the caption, read:
The defendant called upon his insurer, National Farmers Union Property and Casualty Company, garnishee defendant and appellant here, to defend.
The liability policy contained the following coverage:
The coverage was subject to the following exclusionary clause:
"This policy does not apply:
..............
The insurer denied liability based on the exclusionary clause and refused to defend.
Judgment was entered by default. The journal entry read in part:
Pursuant to an affidavit filed on behalf of the plaintiff, an order of garnishment was issued directed to the defendant and his insurer. Again, the insurer denied liability contending as a matter of law it had no liability because the damages involved were caused by defendant's intentional wrongdoing, and the exclusionary clause in the policy excludes coverage.
The trial court concluded that the case presented only a question *118 of law without a genuine issue of any material fact and granted summary judgment for plaintiff. The reason for the trial court's conclusion was stated in its memorandum opinion. It first found that covering the insured for his own wrong would not be against public policy under the circumstances, and then concluded:
The comment in the citation, 62 A.L.R.2d 1247, constituted some authority for the trial court's ruling. However, the statement made in the annotation is much too broad and the broad statement is not supported by the case cited. The A.L.R. statement reads:
It will be understood that there are many degrees or different classifications of trespass ranging all the way from an innocent trespasser to a willful and malicious trespasser. An intermeddler who enters upon the property of another simply to have an innocent look and accidentally, though negligently, damages personal property with no intention of using it or taking it into his "care, custody, or control" would no doubt be covered by the liability policy and would not be subject to the exclusionary clause. However, a much different situation would exist where a willful or malicious trespasser enters upon the property of another intending to and does take a vehicle into his own control and removes it for his own use without the consent of the owner.
It was the former situation which the court had under consideration in Great American Indem. Co. of New York v. Saltzman, 213 *119 F.2d 743, cited in A.L.R. as authority for the statement heretofore quoted.
In the Saltzman case the defendant, an airplane enthusiast, had in mind purchasing a new plane. He was attracted by a plane standing at an airport and entered the cockpit for the sole purpose of inspecting its mechanism and its various gadgets. The entrance was without the knowledge or consent of the owner. The defendant engaged the starter control and to his surprise and amazement the engines started propelling the aircraft into a hangar some ninety feet away resulting in considerable damage to the plane. The ruling of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, is stated in the head note as follows:
In the opinion it is stated:
We have no quarrel with the opinion in the Saltzman case. The insured did not intend to and did not take custody or control of the airplane. The case is no authority under the facts which we have before us where the tractor was willfully and wrongfully taken into the possession and control of the defendant for his own use.
Having no cases in point from this jurisdiction, we have examined the cases from other states which are cited in the briefs but do not find them helpful in view of the peculiar facts before us.
We are constrained to hold that under the facts in the present case the insured did have "care, custody, or control" of the tractor as those words are used in the exclusionary clause. Control of the insured refers to posessory handling of the property as distinguished from proprietary control.
Our decision is further influenced by the consideration that the limited facts as presented here constitute a crime in this state under the provisions of K.S.A. 21-544, which provides:
It is generally held that an insurance policy is void as against public policy if its intent is to indemnify the insured against liability for his criminal acts. (44 C.J.S., Insurance, § 242b, p. 1005.) This court will construe a contract of insurance so as to uphold its validity if reasonably possible. (Gas Co. v. Altoona, 79 Kan. 466, 100 Pac. 50; Keeler Co. v. Atchison, T. &amp; S.F. Rly. Co., 187 Kan. 125, 354 P.2d 368.)
The judgment is reversed with directions to the trial court to enter judgment for the garnishee, National Farmers Union Property and Casualty Company.
APPROVED BY THE COURT.