Opinion ID: 2622088
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Were the Dowdys Injured in the Same Accident as Their Daughter Within the Meaning of the Policy?

Text: The arbitration that was conducted in this case fell within the coverage of Alaska's Uniform Arbitration Act. [19] Under the act both findings of fact and legal conclusions are unreviewable, even in the case of gross error. [20] As already noted, much of State Farm's briefing is devoted to the proposition that the arbitrators erred as a matter of law in finding that the facts of this case supported an NIED claim. But we may not review this question because of the doctrine of arbitrable unreviewability. We thus confine this opinion to the question of policy coverage. State Farm's argument on this point is that the coverage it provides is not necessarily coextensive with NIED liability. State Farm contends that even if the arbitrators' decision concerning the Dowdys' entitlement to NIED awards is correct (or incorrect but insulated from judicial review), per-person coverage under the UIM policy does not extend to the Dowdys' claims because the Dowdys were not injured in the accident with Heather. The Dowdys argue that the in the same accident requirement of separate coverage is necessarily satisfied because the arbitrators have determined that the Dowdys have compensable NIED bystander claims and this determination is legally correct and, in any case, not subject to judicial review on its merits. In accordance with the standard of review that we employ in interpreting the language of insurance policies, the question here is, could a reasonable person expect that policy language providing coverage for damages due to bodily injury to two or more persons in the same accident would apply to the Dowdys who were not in the accident with their daughter, did not witness it, and did not come upon it shortly after it occurred? In our view this question must be answered in the negative. The accident referred to by the policy in the context of this case is, of course, the collision between the vehicles driven by Kirk Jackson and Heather Dowdy. When it occurred Asa and Barbara Dowdy were miles away. They did not view the scene of the accident before Heather was transported to the hospital. The arbitrators found that the accident occurred at 3:00 p.m., but Barbara Dowdy did not learn of the accident until 5:00 p.m. She was permitted to view her daughter's body at the hospital sometime after 6:30 p.m. Asa Dowdy learned of the accident about 7:40 p.m., rushed to the hospital, and viewed Heather's body shortly after 8:00 p.m. To conclude that either Barbara or Asa Dowdy were injured in the same accident with Heather would stretch the meaning of that phrase beyond any generally accepted usage. There is case law in other jurisdictions that lends support to this conclusion. In Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. Dennison, the Supreme Court of Hawaii was presented with an NIED claim. [21] The plaintiff did not witness the auto accident in which his son was injured but he arrived at what was described as the triage area some thirty minutes after the accident occurred. [22] The plaintiff suffered serious emotional distress as a result of viewing his son in the triage area. [23] Under a Hawaii statute, no tort recovery was available except for a person who sustained injury in a motor vehicle accident. [24] The Hawaii Supreme Court stated that the issue before it was whether [the plaintiff], who was not a passenger in the . . . car [in which his son was a passenger], did not witness the car accident, and arrived down the street from the collision approximately thirty minutes after the accident occurred, sustained his emotional distress in the car accident for purposes of [the statute in question].[ [25] ] The court answered no to this question, but suggested that if the father had witnessed the accident the statute would be satisfied. [26] In reaching these conclusions, the Dennison court relied on an earlier Hawaii case, First Insurance Co. of Hawaii v. Lawrence, [27] which had similarly held that NIED claimants who did not at least witness the accident in which their relative was killed were not in the accident for purposes of the statute: Although the Smiths claim that their emotional distress claims arose out of a motor vehicle accident in which Christopher was killed, none of the Smiths sustained their accidental harm in the accident. [28] Both Dennison and Lawrence cited cases from other jurisdictions holding that separate per-person (or per-accident) limits were available to NIED plaintiffs who had directly witnessed an accident giving rise to their injuries. The cases relied on in Dennison are Employers Casualty Insurance Co. v. Foust, [29] Crabtree v. State Farm Insurance Co., [30] Wolfe v. State Farm Insurance Co., [31] and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Ramsey. [32] Of these cases only Crabtree explicitly discusses the in the same accident language. In Crabtree a woman witnessed an accident in which her husband was injured. [33] He was riding a motorcycle and she was following him in her car. [34] The Louisiana Supreme Court held that the in the same accident language in a State Farm policy was satisfied: Mrs. Crabtree saw her husband violently struck and severely injured by an oncoming car. She suffered mental pain and anguish precisely because she witnessed the event which caused the severe injuries to her husband. The same accident which caused Mr. Crabtree's bodily injury also caused Mrs. Crabtree's bodily injury.[ [35] ] In Louisiana, NIED bystander claims can be maintained by persons who view an accident that causes injury to a relative, or by persons who soon after such an accident come upon the accident scene. Such claims are referred to as Lejeune claims. [36] The Louisiana Supreme Court observed that it was not deciding whether a person who meets the Lejeune requirements but who was not timely present at the immediate scene of the incident has incurred his or her `bodily injury' `in the same accident' as the `bodily injury' to the original injured party. [37] Thus the court did not decide whether non-witness NIED claimants who come upon the scene of an accident soon after it occurs would satisfy the in the same accident requirement. The question in the present case is at least a full step removed from the question reserved in Crabtree because the Dowdys did not suffer their injuries as a result of coming upon the scene of the accident. The Dowdys contend that our decision in Allstate Insurance Co. v. Teel [38] indicates that they satisfy the in the same accident requirement. Teel involved a coverage question arising out of an NIED claim. The plaintiff's son was injured in an automobile accident while a passenger in a car driven by O'Flanagan. [39] Plaintiff asserted an NIED claim under O'Flanagan's UIM policy issued by Allstate. Allstate claimed that coverage was not available to the plaintiff under its policy because she was not an insured person under O'Flanagan's UIM coverage which, under the policy, included any other person who is legally entitled to recover because of bodily injury to . . . an occupant of [the insured's] auto. . . . [40] Allstate contended that since the plaintiff had an NIED claim and this claim was a direct rather than a derivative claim under our case law, plaintiff's claim was not because of bodily injury to her son. We rejected this argument on the grounds that the because of language was broad enough to encompass an NIED claim: The injuries suffered by an individual entitled to recover under the bystander exception to NIED claims, though not derivative, are the natural and probable consequence of contemporaneously witnessing the bodily injury suffered by someone with whom they have a close relationship. We therefore conclude that a party who has met the burden of proving his or her NIED claim would satisfy the causal requirement between the accident and the injury that the Allstate policy requires.[ [41] ] Unlike in Teel, the policy language in the present case requires that a person seeking separate per-accident coverage be injured in the same accident. If the requirement for coverage were simply that the plaintiffs had suffered injury because of the injuries to their daughter, a substantially different coverage question would be presented. The Dowdys argue that because the arbitrators found that they have valid NIED claims, this necessarily means that they are entitled to separate per-person UIM limits. They base this conclusion on Crabtree, discussed previously, and three other opinions involving State Farm policies decided in other jurisdictions. The other cases relied on by the Dowdys are State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance. Co. v. Jakupko, [42] State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Connolly ex rel. Connolly, [43] and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. D.L.B. ex rel. Brake. [44] But each of these cases involved NIED claims of witnesses to an underlying accident. [45] It was therefore possible to say, as the Louisiana court did in Crabtree, that the mental distress that the witnesses suffered was an injury that occurred in the same accident that physically involved the relatives of the NIED plaintiffs. [46] But since the Dowdys were far removed from the accident involving their daughter, the same conclusion is not possible here. The Arizona case cited by the Dowdys, Connolly, makes it clear that in Arizona the in the same accident requirement is satisfied because NIED plaintiffs must be in the zone of danger to be entitled to a recovery: Significantly, Arizona cases require that the negligent infliction of emotional distress plaintiff must have been in the zone of danger to recover. Thus, the successful plaintiff has been directly affected by the tortfeasor's negligence. Unlike a loss of consortium claim, in which the tortfeasor's injury to one person indirectly affects another person by affecting the emotional, physical, and/or financial relationship between the injured party and the plaintiff, a plaintiff who successfully asserts a negligent infliction of emotional distress claim has directly experienced the tortfeasor's negligence, and that negligence has caused the plaintiff to suffer such severe emotional distress that physical injury results. The tortfeasor did not merely affect the plaintiff by injuring someone close to the plaintiff, so the injury to the plaintiff is not solely due to the bodily injury to another person. Instead, the negligent infliction of emotional distress plaintiff's injury is due to the unique experience of having witnessed, at such close range as to be in the zone of danger, the event that caused the injury to the other person. In other words, the negligent infliction of emotional distress claimant's physical injury results from the accident, not solely from the injury to the other person. In short, if a person has a valid negligent infliction of emotional distress claim, she has suffered a bodily injury arising from the same accident as the other injured party.[ [47] ] In Alaska, unlike Arizona, the NIED tort is not limited to the zone of danger. Similarly, unlike the other jurisdictions relied on by the Dowdys, the NIED tort is not limited to witnesses to an accident. Thus it is not possible to say that all plaintiffs with NIED claims that are valid under Alaska law are necessarily injured in the same accident as their injured relatives. Our focus when this case was before us previously was on the question of whether coverage issues should be decided judicially or at arbitration. We did not decide whether the absence of coverage could be determined as a matter of law. But that is the question now and under the facts and circumstances presented it seems plain that the in the same accident language of the policy cannot reasonably be construed to cover the Dowdys' NIED claim. The Dowdys were not injured in an accident. Rather, they were injured as a result of the death of their daughter in an accident. The policy provided coverage for their resulting injuries but only under their daughter's per-person coverage. Since the limits for that coverage have been exhausted, they have no remaining policy coverage under which they may recover damages.