Opinion ID: 1733271
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Coverage is Excluded Under the Fellow Employee Exclusion Clause

Text: Aetna claims coverage is excluded under the fellow employee exclusion clause, which excludes coverage for any bodily injury to anyone who is a fellow employee of the insured. This requires that the injured party (Baker) and the insured (DePew) be employed by the same employer and that the injury arise out of and in the course of that employment. This requirement is met here because Holloway is the common employer of Baker and DePew, and the injury arose out of and in the course of Baker's employment by Holloway. See Zink v. Employers Mut. Liability Ins. Co., 724 S.W.2d 561 (Mo.App. 1986), a wrongful death action in which Zink, the backup driver of a long-distance truck driving team, was killed in an accident that occurred while the head driver was operating the truck. In finding that coverage was excluded under the fellow employee exclusion clause, the court held that the term fellow employee as used in the fellow employee exclusion, means another employee of the same employer. [1] Id. at 563. Although Aetna is not claiming coverage is excluded in this case under the employee exclusion clause, it is important to evaluate the applicability of the employee exclusion clause because this will help understand the difference between it and the fellow employee exclusion clause, and this, in turn, is very helpful in analyzing the case precedent relied upon by plaintiff. The employee exclusion clause requires that the injured party be an employee of the insured and that the injury arise out of and in the course of that employment. What would be the result if Aetna were claiming that the coverage was excluded under the employee exclusion clause? Of course, Baker is not an employee of DePew, so, on that basis, the employee exclusion clause would not be applicable. Baker is an employee of Holloway, and Holloway is the named insured under the policy; so, in the absence of the severability clause, the employee exclusion clause would apply, and Aetna would have no liability under the policy. However, because this policy contains a severability clause, Holloway is not treated as an insured when applying the policy for the benefit of DePew, and, therefore, the employee exclusion clause would not exclude coverage in this situation. In distinguishing between the employee exclusion clause and the fellow employee exclusion clause, the latter does not require that the common employer be an insured. [2] It is clear from the language of the fellow employee exclusion clause that the only requirement for it to apply is that the injured party (Baker) and the insured (DePew) have a common employer, which they have (Holloway).