Opinion ID: 1733271
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Cases Relied Upon by Plaintiff

Text: The plaintiff relies heavily upon Bituminous Casualty Corp. v. Aetna Life & Casualty Co., 599 S.W.2d 516 (Mo.App.1980), and the Wyoming case of Barnette v. Hartford Insurance Group, 653 P.2d 1375 (Wyo.1982). However, Bituminous involved an employee exclusion clause rather than a fellow employee exclusion clause. In Bituminous , Kitcherside, an employee of Metro, was operating a bulldozer to push a mired-down truck owned by ABC Roofing, insured by Aetna, and operated by Yates, an employee of ABC Roofing. Yates was injured and sued Kitcherside. Kitcherside was an omnibus coverage insured under Aetna's policy covering the truck because pushing the truck was considered to be use of the truck. Aetna declined coverage under the employee exclusion clause, which excluded coverage for any bodily injury to ... any employee of the insured.... The policy contained a severability clause that provided [T]he term `the insured' is used severally and not collectively. The court of appeals held that the employee exclusion clause did not bar coverage to the omnibus covered insured (Kitcherside) because the injured party (Yates) was not an employee of the insured claiming coverage (Kitcherside). The fact that Yates was employed by the named insured (ABC Roofing) is irrelevant in view of the severability clause. This is exactly the same analysis we applied earlier in this opinion when discussing, hypothetically, whether DePew would have had coverage if Aetna had relied upon the employee exclusion clause. We reached the same conclusion that the court of appeals reached in Bituminous , i.e., that the employee exclusion clause is not applicable. However, Aetna does not rely upon the employee exclusion clause in the present case; it relies upon the fellow employee exclusion clause, and that clause changes the result because it is fully applicable even when it is applied in conjunction with the severability clause. For this reason, Bituminous is not helpful precedent in the present case. In Barnette , the Wyoming court was actually considering a fellow employee exclusion clause (which they referred to as a cross-employee exclusion clause). However, virtually all of the cases that the Wyoming court discussed and the treatises relied upon involved employee exclusion clauses. The Wyoming court apparently either never distinguished between the two or assumed that both clauses have the same purpose and therefore should be applied in the same manner to reach the same result. We have articulated in our prior discussion that the fellow employee exclusion clause is indeed different than the employee exclusion clause, the best evidence of which is that the fellow employee exclusion clause produces a different result in the present case than the employee exclusion clause; i.e., it excludes coverage on DePew with respect to Baker's injuries. In an attempt to use Bituminous and Barnette as persuasive precedent in the present case, plaintiff Baker apparently argues that the severability clause requires us to ignore the fact that DePew and Baker were both employed by Holloway. In his Brief at pages 26 and 27, Baker argues: Missouri courts and a majority of courts in other jurisdictions agree that a severability clause operates to treat each insured, whether the named insured or an additional insured as a separate and distinct individual apart from any and every other person who may be entitled to coverage under the policy in question. When this concept is extended to the instant case, Earl DePew is afforded coverage under the Aetna Policy as a separate and distinct individual apart from his employer, Holloway Construction. He is not insured through the policy for Holloway Construction, rather he has a separate, independent policy in his individual capacity. As a result, the fellow employee exclusion is not applicable. Plaintiff seems to be arguing that the severability clause requires the policy to be interpreted to exclude from consideration all other persons and their relationships to DePew (the insured who is claiming coverage) and Baker (the injured party). Plaintiff would thus require ignoring Holloway and the fact that it is the common employer of Baker and DePew. However, it is clear that the severability clause does not affect the fact of employment; it merely limits the persons to whom the term insured applies. We have carefully analyzed the policy provisions and by our discussion demonstrated that the fellow employee exclusion clause, which provides that `[b]odily injury' to any fellow employee [Baker] of the `insured' [DePew] arising out of and in the course of the fellow employee's [Baker's] employment, clearly bars coverage in this instance. We hold that the fellow employee exclusion clause excluded coverage by Aetna of Baker's claim for injuries against DePew.