Opinion ID: 2296223
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Is caused by an animal owned by or in the care of an Insured.

Text: Although we cannot glean a precise meaning of insured location from this provision, it does narrow the scope of the term in two important respects. First, coverage is afforded to a person on the Insured location with the permission of an Insured. ... (Emphasis added.) This language implies that the insured must have a sufficient legal interest in the insured location such that the insured has the right to grant permission to a noninsured to enter that location. From this we infer that [i]nsured location plainly may not be construed so broadly as to include public spaces, access to which cannot be contingent on the permission of any individual property owner. Similarly, the insured location may not be premises over which some party other than the insured exercises exclusive control and that the insured cannot rightfully access or permit another to access. Another person's private property, that is to say, cannot reasonably be construed as an insured location simply because an insured sanctions a trespass by giving a third party permission to access those premises. Second, the policy provides medical coverage for all invitees injured on the Insured location, regardless of whether the injury relates to the insured's own activities or property maintenance. By contrast, the policy only provides for medical care of third parties injured off of the Insured location if there are specified reasons to charge the insured with responsibility for the injury. From this distinction we draw the ready inference that the insured necessarily carries a heightened level of responsibility for the insured location relative to other locations, such that a third party invitee injured on the insured location might reasonably look to the insured for payment of medical expenses simply because of where the injury occurred. This further demonstrates that the term insured location is not intended to include public spaces or property over which the insured exercises no control or for which the insured bears no particularized responsibility. Turning to the location of the accident in the present case, the record does not show that the Kings had a cognizable interest in the dead-end portion of Midwood Road that would place the accident site within the scope of an [i]nsured location. According to the Second Circuit's decision, the homeowners association, which is incorporated, owns this road. Nothing in the record demonstrates that the Kings' ownership of the residence premises conferred to them authority over this stretch of road; nor do we see any indication that the Kings bore a heightened level of personal responsibility for the location. Their warranty deed specifically confers the right to use in common with others to whom the right has been or may hereafter be granted, for all purposes of travel, the private roads leading from the premises to and from the public highway insofar as the same may be necessary or convenient in passing to and from the premises. ... (Emphasis added.) It is clear, however, that the location of the accidenta stretch of dead-end roaddoes not lead from the residence to any public road, and the right to use this road is therefore not explicitly conveyed in the deed. The text of the warranty deed, moreover, is not amenable to a more expansive reading of the Kings' easement beyond this express conveyance. The deed affords them the right to use the private roads of Deer Park only insofar as the same may be necessary or convenient in passing to and from the premises ... [to the public road]. Accordingly, it is clear that the easement has purposefully limited both the nature and the scope of the rights it creates. The resulting circumscribed right of passage leaves the lion's share of rights and concomitant duties, even along the roads reasonably leading to the public way, to that road's actual ownerwhether it be another homeowner (who like the Kings was deeded a portion of the road) or the homeowners association generally. [13] We therefore conclude that the limited easement expressed in the Kings' warranty deed does not give them a sufficient interest in the accident site, a dead-end stretch of road beyond the scope of that easement, to render it an insured location. Under the terms of the insurance contract at issue in this case, the accident site therefore is not covered.