Opinion ID: 2228477
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Metropolitan Policy

Text: This policy contains a provision obligating the insured to give Metropolitan written notice of an underinsurance claim [w]ithin 90 days or as soon as practicable. It does not, however, indicate from what date or event the 90 days is to be measured. In an underinsurance setting, this provision is a model of ambiguity. The courts below, agreeing with the carrier, interpreted the clause to mean 90 days from the date of the accident. That is an eminently plausible interpretation, but it is not the only plausible interpretation. The plaintiff argues that he acted well within the 90-day period (i.e., in six days) if the starting point is measured from the date he actually learned that the tortfeasor was underinsured. The courts have differed in interpreting this provision. In Matter of Travelers Ins. Co. v Morzello (221 AD2d 291, 292) the court was confronted with the same language in which the 90-day period, as here, was an abstraction untied to any particular event. It concluded that the 90-day notice period should be marked not from the accident date but from the date the insured knew or should have known that [the tortfeasor] was underinsured with respect to his claim ( see also, Owen v Allstate Ins. Co., 250 AD2d 1018). In Matter of Travelers Ins. Co. (Dauria ) (224 AD2d 259) the court took the relevant starting point to be when the insured was apprised of the tortfeasor's underinsurance. In Matan v Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. (243 AD2d 978, 979, supra ), the court suggested another starting point when it identified the insured's founded suspicion of his underinsurance claim and in Matter of Allstate Ins. Co. v Sala (226 AD2d 172, supra ) the court held that the insured did not have a viable claimand hence no duty to give notice of oneuntil after the jury had sorted out who was to blame and thereby established the underinsured status of the tortfeasor who was liable ( see also, Matter of Travelers Ins. [Torres], 245 AD2d 82, 83). That sophisticated Judges have varied widely in their interpretation of this 90-day language further satisfies us of its ambiguous character. Thus, we will apply a well-established rule of construction of insurance contracts. When an insurance carrier drafts an ambiguously worded provision and attempts to limit its liability by relying on it, we will construe the language against the carrier ( see, e.g., Breed v Insurance Co., 46 NY2d 351, 353; Sincoff v Liberty Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 11 NY2d 386, 390; 2 Russ and Segalla, Couch on Insurance 3rd § 22:14; 7 Jaeger, Williston on Contracts § 900 [3d ed 1963]). We therefore reject the carrier's interpretationwith which Supreme Court and the Appellate Division agreedthat the contested 90-day language be interpreted to mean 90 days from the date of the accident. We will construe the language in a manner more favorable to the insured. By phrasing the clause in the disjunctive, Metropolitan created a further ambiguity, leaving the language open to an interpretation that the period is measured from 90 days after the accident or as soon as practicable, whichever is shorter. We will assign it the other interpretation, and construe it as allowing Mancuso to file a claim 90 days or as soon as practicable (whichever is longer) from the date that he knew or should reasonably have known that Charbonneau was underinsured. [4] Even under this standard Mancuso's claim fails. Under the facts as found by the lower courts Mancuso should reasonably have known of his underinsurance claim well before he gave notice of it on June 5, 1996. He filed the claim 14 months after he began his personal injury action and three years after the accident. If the delay were less extensive we would remit the case for a calculation as to when the claim was reasonably ascertainable. On this record, however, no matter how calculated, the timeliness of the notice of Mancuso's underinsurance claim was unreasonable as a matter of law. Accordingly, in Nationwide and in Metropolitan, the orders of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, with costs. In each case: order affirmed, with costs.