Opinion ID: 1152460
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Did the injury arise out of the use of an uninsured automobile and is Britt legally entitled to recover from the operator of the uninsured vehicle?

Text: Although the trial court and the parties to this appeal have addressed these two issues separately, we find them to be inextricably interrelated, and we therefore analyze them together. Under the terms of both the contract language and the uninsured motorist statute, the insurer must indemnify the insured for damages that arise out of the use of an uninsured motor vehicle and for which the insured is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of the uninsured vehicle. See §66-5-301. Dairyland and Phoenix assert that, even if Britt's injury was an accident, it did not arise out of the use of a motor vehicle. They further argue that Britt is not legally entitled to recover from the operator of the uninsured vehicle. In advancing these arguments, the insurers emphasize that there has been no showing that the uninsured vehicle's operator was in any way involved in the stabbing. Britt, on the other hand, argues that his right to recover does not require a showing that the vehicle's operator participated in the stabbing [3] as long as his injuries arose out of an accident involving an uninsured vehicle. Britt rests this argument on the public policies that are embodied in our uninsured motorist statute. We begin our analysis of these issues by emphasizing that this case involves at least two distinct torts. First, the uninsured vehicle's driver committed a tort when she collided with the Glass vehicle. We do not know whether she struck the vehicle negligently or intentionally, and we will return to the important factual issue raised by her state of mind later in this opinion. The two assailants, on the other hand, committed the intentional tort of battery. It is beyond dispute that Britt's injuries resulted from the stabbing and not from the collision. Our task is to determine what connection, if any, Britt must show between the two sets of torts in order to bring himself within the coverage of the uninsured motorist endorsements. Can coverage be premised solely upon the fact that he was attacked by passengers in an uninsured vehicle, or must he show a closer nexus between the actions of the uninsured driver and his injuries? Resolution of these issues requires us to examine briefly the principles and policies that underlie both our uninsured motorist insurance statute and the judicial decisions that have interpreted and applied that statute. Britt points out, quite accurately, that we consistently have held that the uninsured motorist statute and contracts arising there-under should be construed liberally in favor of coverage in order to implement the remedial purposes behind that statute. Our adherence to this approach has rested upon the recognition that the uninsured motorist statute was intended to expand insurance coverage and to protect individual members of the public against the hazard of culpable uninsured motorists. Romero, 111 N.M. at 156, 803 P.2d at 245; see generally Padilla v. Dairyland Ins. Co., 109 N.M. 555, 557, 787 P.2d 835, 837 (1990), and cases discussed therein. Moreover, we have said that these public policies warrant application of a qualitatively different analysis from that appropriate for other insurance cases. Padilla, 109 N.M. at 558, 787 P.2d at 838. Britt argues that these cases support the proposition that uninsured motorist coverage should extend to situations, like this one, in which the injured party is clearly free from fault, and the actions of an uninsured motorist are a cause-in-fact, if not a proximate cause, of the injury. [4] Although Britt does not thoroughly explain the precise theoretical basis for his position, we understand his argument to be premised upon one or both of two theories: (1) fault on the part of the uninsured motorist is not a requirement for recovery under the uninsured motorist statute; or (2) the uninsured motorist is vicariously liable for the actions of her passengers. We consider both of these theories in turn. A fundamental tenet of common law negligence is that liability must be predicated upon fault. In the present state of our law, except in the case of products liability, abnormally dangerous animals, conditions or activities, and a few other instances, [legal] liability is incurred only when the defendant has been at fault, which in the usual case means negligence. W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 83, at 598 (5th ed. 1984). We have no reason to believe that the framers of our uninsured motorist statute intended to abandon the fault principle. In fact, the plain language of the statute indicates the exact opposite. In unambiguous language the statute provides that the insurer's duty to indemnify is predicated upon the injured plaintiff's entitlement to recover damages from the uninsured motorist. We recently have held that such an entitlement to recover arises from substantive law independent of the uninsured motorist statute itself, see State Farm Auto. Ins. Co. v. Ovitz, 117 N.M. 547, 549, 873 P.2d 979, 981 (1994), and fault principles have long been a fundamental tenet of the substantive tort law of New Mexico. While we invariably have resolved contract ambiguities in favor of the insured in uninsured motorist cases, none of our opinions have ever suggested that uninsured motorist coverage exists without regard to the fault of the owner or operator of the uninsured vehicle. In fact, none of our prior uninsured motorist cases has involved the issue whether the uninsured motorist caused the plaintiff's injury. In virtually all of those cases it was undisputed that the uninsured vehicle operator had caused the plaintiff's injuries. See, e.g., Romero, 111 N.M. at 155, 803 P.2d at 244; Padilla, 109 N.M. at 556, 787 P.2d at 836; Lopez v. Foundation Reserve Ins. Co., 98 N.M. 166, 167, 646 P.2d 1230, 1231 (1982); State Farm Auto. Ins. Co. v. Kiehne, 97 N.M. 470, 470-71, 641 P.2d 501, 501-02 (1982); Chavez v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 87 N.M. 327, 328, 533 P.2d 100, 101 (1975). Nothing in any of these opinions indicates an intent to abandon conventional fault principles in uninsured motorist cases. We conclude that our uninsured motorist statute is not a no-fault statute. It well may be that the burden upon the plaintiff pursuing an uninsured motorist claim is something less than that borne by the plaintiff seeking to enjoy the benefits of a liability policy when pursing an insured motorist claim. However, we need not define the precise contours of that burden here. We next consider whether an operator of an uninsured motor vehicle is vicariously liable for the intentional, harmful actions of her passengers or whether we should entertain a presumption of such vicarious liability. As with the no-fault issue just discussed, there is nothing in the uninsured motorist statute or in any of our prior opinions to suggest that vicarious liability would be appropriate in this context. Moreover, none of the thirty-five other states with uninsured motorist statutes similar to ours, see 1 Alan I. Widiss, Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Insurance § 2.2, at 23 (2d ed. 1987) (listing states with provisions similar to New Mexico), has, to our knowledge, adopted such an approach. The only published opinion of which we are aware that addresses the issue flatly rejected the notion that an uninsured motorist is vicariously liable for his or her passenger's intentional tort. See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Spotten, 610 N.E.2d 299, 302 (Ind.Ct.App.1993). Moreover, in those uninsured motorist cases in which courts have permitted a plaintiff to recover for a passenger's intentional act, the recovery has been predicated upon the owner or operator's active participation in or facilitation of the passenger's commission of the harmful act. See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Davis, 937 F.2d 1415, 1419 (9th Cir.1991); Cung La v. State Farm Auto. Ins. Co., 830 P.2d 1007, 1011 (Colo.1992) (en banc); General Accident Fire & Life Assurance Corp. v. Appleton, 355 So.2d 1261, 1263 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.), cert. denied, 361 So.2d 830 (1978); Spotten, 610 N.E.2d at 302; Foster v. Lafayette Ins. Co., 504 So.2d 82, 86 (La.Ct. App.), writs denied, 505 So.2d 61, and writ denied, 505 So.2d 65 (1987); Redden, 357 So.2d at 633. We hold that drivers of uninsured vehicles are not vicariously liable for the intentional torts of their passengers and that a passenger's mere presence in the vehicle is, without more, an insufficient basis from which to conclude that the victim is legally entitled to recover from the operator of an uninsured vehicle. Having determined that our uninsured motorist statute gives rise to neither liability without fault nor vicarious liability, we turn to the facts of the instant appeal. Here, there was but-for causation between the collision and Britt's injuries. In addition, we know that the driver of the uninsured vehicle bore some faultamounting to at least negligencewhen she collided with the Glass vehicle. However, Britt sustained no injury to himself or his property in the collision. If he had, there is no question that he could recover for such damages. The issue before us here is whether there is a sufficient nexus between the uninsured driver's fault and Britt's injuries. If there is, then Britt's injuries arose out of the use of an uninsured automobile. The supreme courts of both Colorado and Minnesota have developed a method of analysis for determining whether intentional conduct and its resulting harm arises out of the use of an uninsured vehicle. See Cung La, 830 P.2d at 1009; Klug, 415 N.W.2d at 878. Under Klug 's three-part analysis, a court first considers whether there is a sufficient causal nexus between the use of the uninsured vehicle and the resulting harm. Such a causal nexus requires that the vehicle be an `active accessory' in causing the injury. Klug, 415 N.W.2d at 878 (quoting Tlougan, 310 N.W.2d at 117); see also Cung La, 830 P.2d at 1009 (holding that recovery might be had if injury would not have been suffered but for assailant's use of the vehicle). If a court finds that there is a sufficient causal nexus, then it should next consider whether an act of independent significance broke the causal link between the use of the vehicle and the harm suffered. Klug, 415 N.W.2d at 878; see Kish v. Central Nat'l Ins. Group of Omaha, 67 Ohio St.2d 41, 21 O.O.3d 26, 424 N.E.2d 288, 294 (1981) (holding that intentional act of murder was intervening cause); cf. United Servs. Auto. Ass'n v. Ledger, 189 Cal.App.3d 779, 234 Cal.Rptr. 570, 572 (1987) (interpreting liability policy and holding that stabbing was intervening cause). Finally, the court must consider whether the use to which the vehicle was put was a normal use of that vehicle. For example, transportation would be a normal use, whereas use of a parked car for a gun rest would not be. See Klug, 415 N.W.2d at 878. Applying these standards to this case, we conclude that there well may have been a sufficient causal link between the use of the uninsured vehicle for transportation and Britt's injuries. What is less clear, however, is whether the attack by the passengers was an act of independent significance sufficient to break this causal link. It is at this point in our analysis that we recognize, as did the trial court, that a crucial issue of fact has yet to be answered in this litigation. Britt argued in the proceedings below that the driver of the uninsured vehicle intentionally collided with the vehicle in which Britt was a passenger. The trial court declined to make a finding regarding the uninsured driver's culpability, specifically reserving that question for arbitration. [5] If, as Britt asserted, the unidentified driver intentionally rammed Glass's vehicle in complicity with the assailants or in order to facilitate the attack, then the assailants' actions probably did not constitute an independent intervening cause sufficient to cut off the nexus between the driver's actions and Britt's injuries. If, on the other hand, the collision was accidental and the assailants developed the intent to attack Britt after the collision, perhaps due to hot tempers resulting from the collision, then their actions broke the causal link between the use of the vehicle and Britt's injury. See Ledger, 234 Cal.Rptr. at 572; Klug, 415 N.W.2d at 878. Under the circumstances of this case, then, the question whether Britt's injury arose out of the use of the uninsured vehicle is inextricably tied to the question whether Britt is legally entitled to recover from the unidentified driver. The answer to both of those questions, in turn, depends upon the state of mind of the uninsured vehicle's operator at the time of the collision.