Opinion ID: 2823192
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of the Carrera Test

Text: Although defendants disagree with the hearing justice’s finding, Peerless argues that there was no error in the hearing justice’s grant of summary judgment, because the definition of resident is constant across all types of insurance and not dependent on the type of policy considered. Determining residency in the specific context of a homeowner’s policy is, to some extent, a matter of first impression for this Court, because our prior cases involved uninsured/underinsured-motorist automobile insurance only. In our opinion, the term resident should not have vastly different meanings across multiple types of insurance contracts. This Court has set out our test for residency in the insurance context, and we perceive no error in the hearing justice’s application of that test to these facts. The purpose of a homeowner’s insurance policy is to defend and indemnify the insureds against liability claims filed by others who may have been injured in the insureds’ home or on their property. 9A Couch on Insurance 3d § 128:2 at 128-7 (such policies insure “against the risk of liability for injuries suffered by others, not injuries suffered by the insured”). Homeowner’s policies commonly and expressly exclude coverage for injuries sustained by an insured, and they define an insured as a resident of the household. Id. at 128-7, 128-8. In view of the fact that the term resident is found in contracts across the entire insurance spectrum, “[n]ot surprisingly, a great deal of litigation has ensued,” and indeed, this Court has already considered the question of what defines a resident for the purposes of construing an insurance contract. Id. at 128-8; see Carrera, 577 A.2d at 984-85. In Carrera, 577 A.2d at 981, the insured was the defendant in a declaratory-judgment action brought by her insurance company. The insured’s adult son had died in a Florida automobile accident involving an uninsured vehicle. Id. In the defendant’s capacity as the - 11 - administrator of her son’s estate, she made a demand on her own automobile insurance company, claiming that her son was a resident of her household at the time of his death and that, therefore, he was covered under the provisions of her policy’s uninsured-motorist benefits. Id. This Court adopted the reasoning of Flather, which addressed the definition of resident for the purposes of state income tax, and specifically embraced four factors that are significant in determining residency: “(1) the amount of time [one] spends in the locality (2) the nature of [one’s] place of abode (3) [one’s] activities in the locality and (4) [one’s] intentions with regard to the length and nature of [one’s] stay.” Carrera, 577 A.2d at 984 (quoting Flather, 119 R.I. at 283, 377 A.2d at 229). In Carrera, we focused on the fourth factor, intent, and determined that it was fatal to the defendant’s contention that her son resided in her home. Id. at 984-85. This was so because her son was, in fact, a fugitive from the state of Rhode Island, making it likely that at the time of the accident, “he had no intention of returning to his mother’s household or to this jurisdiction.” Id. at 985. Specifically, we said: “In order to determine if a person is a resident of a particular household, the court must consider whether in the totality of the circumstances that person maintains a physical presence in the household with intent to remain for more than a mere transitory period, or that person has a reasonably recent history of physical presence together with circumstances that manifest an intent to return to the residence within a reasonably foreseeable period.” Id. Put simply, one who maintains a personal presence in a home with the intent to continue that presence for more than a temporary period is considered a resident of that home under our law. Id. In Carrera, because of the defendant’s son’s lack of intent to return to his mother’s home, we affirmed the judgment that he was not a resident of her home at the time of his fatal accident. Id. - 12 - at 985-86. As a result, his estate was unable to maintain a claim for insurance benefits under his mother’s policy. Id. Shortly after the pronouncement of this definition, this Court again addressed the question of residency, this time in the context of a child of divorce. Barricelli, 583 A.2d 127071. In Barricelli, a case that is more factually similar to the situation here than is Carrera, the plaintiffs were divorced parents and co-administrators of the estate of their deceased daughter, Gina. Id. at 1270. The plaintiffs sought a declaration that the estate’s losses, stemming from Gina’s death, which occurred while she was a passenger in a single-car accident, were covered by her mother’s uninsured/underinsured-motorist insurance. Id. The defendant carrier filed a motion for summary judgment, asserting that Gina was not a resident of her mother’s household at the time of her death, a requisite for coverage. Id. The defendant’s motion was granted and, occasioned by the parents’ appeal, this Court was asked to review the determination of Gina’s residency. Id. In our decision, we observed that the parents were divorced pursuant to a decree of the Family Court that had awarded custody of Gina to her mother, that Gina lived with her mother for several years following the divorce, and that ultimately she had moved in with her father some three years before the fatal accident. Id. at 1271. After that move, Gina’s contacts with her mother’s household were “structured, albeit intermittent.” Id. Those contacts included weekly visits to her mother’s home and overnight visits on alternate weekends, during which Gina would sleep on a pullout sofa. Id. Although Gina did keep one or two changes of clothing and some personal belongings at her mother’s house, for the overnight visits she packed a suitcase. Id. We recognized that “not all types of contact with an insured’s household make a person a ‘resident,’” and we held that because Gina’s contacts with her mother’s home were infrequent, that she lacked a regular bed to sleep in, and that she needed to pack a suitcase to - 13 - visit for weekends, it could not be said that her presence in her mother’s house was more than for “a mere transitory period.” Id. at 1271, 1272. Accordingly, we concluded that Gina was not a resident of her mother’s home for purposes of her mother’s insurance policy. Id. at 1272. Here, in our de novo review, we find ourselves convinced by an analysis of the agreed facts that Maya was a resident of Mr. Henderson’s household. There was no dispute that Maya regularly was present in her father’s home subject to an amicable custody agreement and judgment of divorce. Various items of Maya’s clothing and personal belongings could be found throughout the house and in the home’s second bedroom, to the extent that she needed little more than an occasional bag on her twice-weekly visits. Maya’s visitation arrangement was regular, the parties had every intention of continuing the custody agreement on the date of the incident, and, in fact, it did continue on the same schedule even after Maya’s injuries. Further, Maya’s grandparents and cousins would often visit her at her father’s home. The nature of this type of presence in her father’s home establishes that Maya was there for more than “a mere transitory period”; indeed, when Maya was at Mr. Henderson’s house, it was functionally her home. Barricelli, 583 A.2d at 1272. We acknowledge, as defendants argue, that Maya was listed as residing in her mother’s home for purposes of school enrollment, that what little mail she received was delivered to her mother’s home, and that Maya’s mother claimed her daughter on her tax returns. However, while these factors may certainly support an argument that Maya was a resident of her mother’s home, they do nothing to disprove that she also resided with her father. We acknowledged in Carrera, 577 A.2d at 984, “the general rule that one may have more than one residence.” In our opinion, we should not concentrate on whether Ms. Luppe’s home qualified as Maya’s residence, but should focus instead on Maya’s contacts with her father’s house and whether those circumstances satisfied the criteria that were first set forth in Carrera - 14 - and were restated in Barricelli. In the context of the totality of the circumstances, we conclude that Maya was a resident of Mr. Henderson’s home on the day she was injured because it was a place at which she had a “recent history of physical presence together with circumstances that manifest an intent to return to the residence within a reasonably foreseeable period.” Carrera, 577 A.2d at 985.