Opinion ID: 2332710
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Use

Text: The superior court held that the policy did not provide coverage under the word use. The court emphasized the fact that the definition of use required the vehicle to be the main cause of a bodily injury. The court granted summary judgment to Infinity and held that the uncontested facts here would not allow reasonable jurors to conclude that the uninsured vehicle was the main cause of Mr. Kalenka's bodily injury claim. According to the superior court, even if the use of the uninsured vehicle was a cause of Kalenka's injuries, the vehicle could not be said to be the main cause. The Kalenka Estate appeals this ruling and argues that Morrell's use of Wassili's Suburban was the main cause of Kalenka's death. According to the Kalenka Estate, Kalenka's injuries arose out of the use the Suburban because the collision of the Suburban with Kalenka's Subaru triggered the confrontation which ended Kalenka's life. In Criterion Insurance v. Velthouse , we considered an insurance policy similar to the one in this case. [13] The policy in Velthouse provided coverage for bodily injury. . . arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the owned auto. [14] Velthouse, the insured, was sitting in his car and picked up a gun he believed was unloaded. [15] The gun was in fact loaded, and Velthouse accidentally discharged it, injuring a passenger. [16] We held that, since the vehicle was the mere situs of the accident, the policy did not provide coverage. [17] In Shaw v. State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Co., we held that automobile insurance could cover an intentional assault. [18] Karel Shaw's ex-boyfriend shot her six times through his driver's side window. [19] Her insurance policy required that bodily injuries arise out of the operation, maintenance, or use of a vehicle. [20] The superior court granted summary judgment to State Farm. [21] We reversed and remanded. [22] We relied on Velthouse for the proposition that there must be some causal connection between the `use' of the vehicle and the injury. [23] Again referring to Velthouse, we noted that, when interpreting these provisions, courts in other states do not require proximate cause in its strict legal sense; rather they only require that the vehicle be more than the mere situs of the accident and that the use of the vehicle relate to its inherent use as a motor vehicle. [24] We also quoted three general factors used by the Minnesota Supreme Court in Continental Western Insurance Co. v. Klug to determine when there was sufficient causation: (1) The extent of causation between the automobile and the injury; (2) Whether an act of independent significance occurred, breaking the causal link between use of the vehicle and the injuries inflicted; and (3) What type of use of the automobile was involved.[ [25] ] In Shaw we concluded that the determination of whether there was use of the vehicle depended to a great degree, on the particular facts of the case and therefore held that summary judgment for the insurer was inappropriate. [26] In Shaw we quoted Klug for the proposition that the vehicle must be an active accessory for there to be an adequate causal relationship (the first element of the Klug test). [27] In Klug, the insured was driving home from work when a coworker drove up next to him and opened fire with a shotgun, hitting Klug in the arm. [28] His coworker pursued Klug for two miles before Klug was able to escape. [29] The Minnesota Supreme Court held that the coworker's vehicle was an active accessory to Klug's injuries. [30] Similarly, in Shaw, Shaw's ex-boyfriend may have used his vehicle to corner and trap Shaw, and we held that there was therefore a genuine issue of material fact as to whether there was coverage. [31] Here, however, the vehicle driven by Morrell was not an active accessory to Kalenka's injuries. The collision between Morrell's and Kalenka's vehicles was only the subject of their fight; the vehicles played no part in the fight itself. Accordingly, there was insufficient causation for Kalenka's death to have arisen out of the use of the vehicle Morrell was driving. We also conclude that here there was an intervening act of independent significance. In Shaw, we clarified that an intentional act is not automatically an act of independent significance. [32] We held that a driver's use of a vehicle to trap and corner another driver did not necessarily constitute an act of independent significance even though it was intentional. [33] In Klug, the Minnesota Supreme Court similarly held that even though Klug's assailant was acting intentionally, the assailant's actions did not constitute an act of independent significance. [34] The Minnesota Supreme Court stated that [h]ad [the assailant] used his vehicle to drive ahead of Klug, left his vehicle, and shot Klug from the side of the road, we might have found an intervening act. [35] Here, Morrell did exit his vehicle prior to assaulting Kalenka and only attacked Kalenka after Kalenka began to call the police on his cell phone. Infinity argues that the definition of use in the policy requires a stricter standard of causation than exists in our previous cases. Kalenka's policy included a definition of use which provided that `[u]se' of an uninsured motor vehicle or an underinsured motor vehicle means that such vehicle must be the main cause of a bodily injury or property damage. Infinity argues that the definition of use was narrower in Kalenka's policy than in the cases discussed above that found coverage existed. But the phrase ownership, maintenance, or use is prescribed by statute; Alaska law requires that automobile insurance contracts must cover damages arising from the ownership, maintenance, or use of a vehicle. [36] In Burton v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co., we explained that [i]nsurers are not permitted to issue policies containing provisions that reduce the scope of coverage below the legal minimum. [37] Infinity cannot limit what constitutes use of a vehicle by defining that term more narrowly than it is defined in the statute.