Opinion ID: 2308373
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Carla Hall's Policy

Text: [¶ 17] Carla Hall's Dairyland Plain Talk Motorcycle Policy provides uninsured or underinsured vehicle coverage for bodily injuries sustained in an accident with an uninsured or underinsured vehicle: We promise to pay damages you're legally entitled to receive from the owner or operator of an uninsured motor vehicle because of bodily injury. (Emphasis in original.) The policy covers bodily injury, including loss of services, sickness, disease or death which results from the injury, caused by a motor vehicle accident and suffered by you. (Emphasis in original.) [¶ 18] The Dairyland policy contains the following exclusion, however: Anyone occupying a motor vehicle owned by you or furnished by your regular use and not insured under this insurance isn't protected by this insurance. (Emphasis in original.) Throughout the policy, the term you is defined to include both the person named on the declarations page and that person's husband or wife if a resident of the same household. [¶ 19] The exclusion in this policy applies to anyone occupying a vehicle that you own, but which is not insured under the policy. Although the definition of you includes both the named insured and a spouse residing in the same household, the exclusion explicitly states that it applies to anyone occupying the vehicle, not to you as an insured, as in the Patriot policy. The policy does not define the term anyone. [¶ 20] Viewed one way, the term anyone would be interpreted to mean any individual occupant of the vehicle. Because Carla Hall was not an individual occupant of the vehicle, the exclusion would not apply to her. Under a competing view, anyone would be interpreted to include the plural you defined in the 12 policy  that is, the named insured and the spouse sharing the insured's residence. Following this interpretation, Carla Hall would be deemed to have occupied the vehicle because she and Hylie Hall would be considered as a single you for purposes of the policy. [¶ 21] Because there are two ways to interpret the policy, it is ambiguous and must be interpreted strictly against Dairyland. See Patrons Oxford Ins. Co., 2006 ME 72, ¶ 7, 905 A.2d at 824. The term anyone is not defined in the policy, and therefore the term must take its ordinary meaning, especially in the context of a Plain Talk policy. See Found. for Blood Research v. St. Paul Marine & Fire Ins. Co., 1999 ME 87, ¶ 12, 730 A.2d 175, 180. Anyone is generally understood to mean, any person indiscriminately: ANYBODY. WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 97 (2002). The term is in the singular and signifies, in the context of the policy, any person occupying a vehicle owned by Carla or Hylie Hall who is not insured by the policy. Carla Hall was not a person occupying the vehicle. Accordingly, she is not a person to whom the policy exclusion applies. The policy therefore provides coverage if Carla Hall can demonstrate that she suffered a bodily injury within the meaning of the policy. [¶ 22] Generally, a person alleging loss of consortium is not considered to have alleged a bodily injury. Gillchrest v. Brown, 532 A.2d 692, 693 (Me.1987). Rather, loss of consortium is an injury that is understood to derive from the bodily injury of another. Id. The Dairyland policy, however, specifically defines bodily injury more broadly than the common understanding of the term to include loss of services . . . suffered by you. The term loss of services is equivalent to loss of consortium and is therefore included as a type of loss that is compensable under the Wrongful Death Act. [6] See Pelletier v. Fort Kent Golf Club, 662 A.2d 220, 224 (Me. 1995) (stating that a spouse may recover for loss of consortium when there is an actual loss of services or affection). In these circumstances, the policy's express terms include Carla Hall's alleged injury as a form of bodily injury. Carla Hall is, therefore, entitled to coverage under her own Dairyland policy if the tortfeasor is underinsured.