Opinion ID: 1570678
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the Jury Was Properly Instructed Concerning the Term Operator of a Motor Vehicle as Used in the American Family Policy.

Text: Plaintiffs argue that in instructing the jury the district court provided an improper definition of operator as that term was used in determining American Family's uninsured-motorist coverage. We review the district court's rulings on jury instructions to determine if they are a correct statement of the applicable law based on the evidence presented. Collister v. City of Council Bluffs, 534 N.W.2d 453, 454 (Iowa 1995); Johnson v. Interstate Power Co., 481 N.W.2d 310, 324 (Iowa 1992). The uninsured-motorist provisions contained in American Family's policy state: We will pay compensatory damages for bodily injury which an insured person is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle. In the present litigation, the action against the owner of the vehicle had been dismissed by plaintiffs. They sought to invoke uninsured-motorist benefits on their claim against Vaknin on the theory that he was the operator of the motor vehicle in which Amanda was injured. The district court in its Instruction No. 17 defined the word operator in the manner in which that word is defined in Iowa Code section 321.1(48) (1999). Accordingly, the instruction defined operator as every person who is in actual physical control of a motor vehicle upon a highway. Plaintiffs urge that the definition of operator contained in Iowa Code section 321.1(48) is only intended to apply in matters governing the duties of persons operating motor vehicles on the public highway and is not applicable in insurance coverage disputes. They suggest that entirely different policies come into play in determining the meaning of operator for purposes of uninsured-motorist coverage and suggest that in that context that term should include persons with a right to control the vehicle who have delegated physical control to another under their supervision. We agree with plaintiffs that caution should be exercised in applying statutory definitions to situations in which the particular statutory scheme may not be involved. Notwithstanding this cautionary approach, we are satisfied that, within the context of American Family's uninsured-motorist coverage, the term operator has reference to a person having physical control of a motor vehicle. Uninsured-motorist coverage is statutorily mandated and exists in the milieu of automobile liability disputes. Consequently, we are satisfied that this word is used in both Iowa Code section 516A.1 (the statute mandating uninsured-motorist coverage) and American Family's policy in the same sense that it is employed in the statutory law of motor vehicle regulation. In Twogood v. American Farmers Mutual Automobile Insurance Ass'n, 229 Iowa 1133, 296 N.W. 239 (1941), we resorted to the statutory definition contained in the motor vehicle laws to determine the meaning of the word operator as used in an insurance policy. In considering the meaning of that word, we stated: With reference to the use of a motor vehicle on the highway, paragraph 39 of the 1939 Code section 5000.01 defines an operator thereof as meaning . . . every person, other than a chauffeur, who is in actual physical control of a motor vehicle upon a highway. Twogood, 229 Iowa at 1138, 296 N.W. at 242. We further stated in Twogood: This does not mean that one who has general authority over a driver with respect to the destination, route, or rate of speed of the vehicle, is operating the vehicle. Id. We adhere to this view in the present case. [1] The Twogood decision relied in part on a decision of the New York Court of Appeals, which applied that state's motor vehicle statutes to define the word operator as used in an insurance policy exclusion. The court in that case stated: The word operate is used throughout the statute as signifying a personal act in working the mechanism of a car. The driver operates the car for the owner, but the owner does not operate the car unless he drives it himself. . . . Obviously, the word is used in the policy in the same sense in which it is used in the Highway Law. Witherstine v. Employers' Liab. Assurance Corp., 235 N.Y. 168, 139 N.E. 229, 230 (1923). A similar view was expressed by the Rhode Island Supreme Court in Elgar v. National Continental/Progressive Insurance Co., 849 A.2d 324 (R.I.2004), wherein the court stated: Elgar's assailants were passengers in the car she was driving. They were not physically operating the taxi or any other vehicle, and did not become the de facto operators of her vehicle merely because they were directing her to a specific location. Elgar, 849 A.2d at 327-28. The district court did not err in defining the term operator in Instruction No. 17.