Opinion ID: 1131456
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: The requisite connection between the insured's injury and the gunman's use of an uninsured vehicle

Text: Willard's UM policy covers injuries caused by accident and arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of an uninsured automobile. [14] (Emphasis added.) Since the latter element of this UM claim contemplates a factual inquiry into the causal relationship [15] between the insured's injuries and Kelley's car use, the question next to be answered is whether the trial court correctly concluded that no fact issue exists. We hold that a question of fact does exist because conflicting inferences can be drawn from the facts in stipulation and those in the evidentiary materials. [16] The record reveals 1) Kelley rested his gun on the car's window sill as he opened fire; 2) Kelley remained in the car at all pertinent times; 3) during the shooting, the getaway car may not have been in motion, but it was in a transportation mode (engine running and in gear); 4) Kelley left the scene by driving away. From these facts a jury might infer that the act of shooting was designed to facilitate Kelley's escape, impede Willard's pursuit, either or both. Although when Kelley shot at Willard the car was not being used as a moving vehicle, the trier might nonetheless conclude that the shooting was related to Kelley's use of the car as a means of getaway and to retard Willard's pursuit. UM-covered use is limited neither to the car's driving operation nor to the lawfulness of the use. If, for instance, during the chase Kelley, instead of firing a gun, had thrown a large object out of the car and into Willard's path, causing him to crash, there would be little doubt that whatever had been thrown from the car facilitated a getaway in the car and thus may be deemed to have arisen from the car's use as a means to accomplish the desired escape. Similarly here, a jury may view the uninsured automobile's use as incidental to the pursuit of a caraided effort to prevent Willard's apprehension of Kelley. In sum, the purpose of the gun's use might be viewed by the trier as identical to that for which the car was used  to impede Willard's pursuit and to facilitate Kelley's effective getaway. If the gun use and the car use are found to be inextricably connected in purpose, the trier could conclude that a casual connection exists between the gunshot would and the vehicle's use. [17] For reasons to be stated the yet-to-be-determined foreseeability issue must also be included in the inquiry into the shooting's causal nexus to Kelley's use of the car. [18] In a case of ordinary negligence a defendant may seek to avoid liability with proof that an intervening force, which directly caused the injury, is also the proximate cause. The foreseeability of the intervening force will determine whether the chain of causation between the defendant's negligence and the injury is to be deemed broken. If the intervening force was foreseeable (or should have been anticipated), then the defendant's original negligence remains the proximate cause of the injury. On the other hand, if an unforeseen, unexpected and independent happening directly causes the injury, then the causal link between the original negligence and the resulting harm is deemed broken and the initial actor is thus insulated from liability. [19] Similarly here, if the gunfire, which without question directly caused the injury, were to be found by the trier to have been unforeseeable from Willard's standpoint, then a jury might either be less likely to link Kelley's use of the automobile with the gunshot wounds he inflicted upon the insured or be more likely to conclude that the gunfire itself constitutes an independent intervening force which precludes the injuries from arising out of the automobile's use. [20] Indeed, Prudential argued that the causal nexus, if any, between Kelley's use of the car and Willard's injuries was broken by the gunman's intervening act of shooting. The issue whether a causal link exists between the use of a car and the injury is hence, in this case, inextricably intertwined with the question whether an accident had occurred. [21] Both factual issues depend in a large measure on the harm's foreseeability viewed from the insured's vantage point; both are nonseverable [22] jury questions. [23]