Opinion ID: 2287196
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Occupancy

Text: The plaintiff insurer claims, and the trial justice held, that coverage under this policy must be denied as a result of the fact that at the time defendants' decedent was shot, she was not an occupant of her motor vehicle. The facts indicate that plaintiff had left the motor vehicle in order to furnish information to a police officer and was located approximately 117 feet away from the vehicle in which she had been a passenger. In determining whether the decedent came within the term occupying, we are persuaded by the analysis of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court contained in Utica Mutual Insurance Co. v. Contrisciane, 504 Pa. 328, 473 A.2d 1005 (1984). In that case the court found that a motorist who had been involved in an accident with another party was struck by another vehicle while he stood by a police car providing information relating to his driver's license and owner's card. The driver of the vehicle causing the accident was uninsured. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court set forth criteria under which a motorist using an insured vehicle would be considered to be occupying that vehicle within the meaning of the policy. (1) there is a causal relation or connection between the injury and the use of the insured vehicle; (2) the person asserting coverage must be in a reasonably close geographic proximity to the insured vehicle, although the person need not be actually touching it; (3) the person must be vehicle oriented rather than highway or sidewalk oriented at the time; and (4) the person must also be engaged in a transaction essential to the use of the vehicle at the time. 504 Pa. at 336, 473 A.2d at 1009. In applying the facts of the case to the foregoing criteria, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania observed: At all times the decedent was engaged in transactions essential to his continued use of the vehicle, and it was only because of the mandated requirements of the statute and the police officer that decedent found himself physically out of contact with his vehicle. Finally, it was the use of the vehicle which precipitated the whole unfortunate series of events. Id. In the case at bar, the holding of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would be most applicable. The decedent here was a passenger in an insured motor vehicle when the accident occurred. She was requested to leave that motor vehicle by a Cumberland police officer and sit in his police vehicle until they were interviewed concerning the facts relating to the accident. As in Contrisciane this transaction was related to her occupancy of the insured motor vehicle. She was certainly vehicle oriented at the time the fatal shot was fired. It was her status as a passenger in the insured vehicle that precipitated the whole unfortunate series of events. Consequently we are of the opinion that at the time the decedent was shot she came within the definition of covered person as a passenger occupying a covered automobile.