Opinion ID: 2091173
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: was matthew occupying vehicle when injured?

Text: The insurance policy in this case provides, in relevant part:  We will pay for medical expenses furnished within three years of the date of an automobile accident because of bodily injury sustained by ... You or any resident relative... while occupying the covered automobile. . . . (Emphasis in original.) The policy defines occupying as in, upon, getting in, on, out or off. The key question in this appeal is whether Matthew was occupying the vehicle within this definition at the time of his electrocution. In Whitmire v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co., 254 S.C. 184, 174 S.E.2d 391 (1970), the claimant was exiting the vehicle in which he had been riding when he saw that he was in danger of being struck by an approaching vehicle. The claimant attempted to flee, but was struck by an uninsured motorist's vehicle. Id. The insurance policy for the vehicle the claimant had exited provided coverage for passengers in, upon, entering into, or alighting from the vehicle. (Emphasis omitted.) Id. at 191, 174 S.E.2d at 394. The Supreme Court of South Carolina determined that the claimant was alighting from the vehicle when he was injured. Id. The court noted that the terms in and upon encompassed situations in which the person had physical contact with the vehicle at the time of injury. Id. The court reasoned: If the phrase alighting from is limited to the physical act of descending from the automobile, it would be meaningless because a person would still be in contact with it and within the coverage afforded under the terms in or upon[.] Alighting from must, therefore, extend to a situation where the body has reached a point when there is no contact with the vehicle. Where the act of alighting is completed is uncertain. It must be determined under the facts of each case, considered in the light of the purpose for which coverage is afforded. Its meaning must be related to the particular use of the automobile and the hazards to be encountered from such use. It is reasonable to conclude that coverage was intended to protect a guest against the hazards from passing automobiles in the vicinity, while the guest, although not in or upon the vehicle, is still engaged in the completion of those acts reasonably to be expected from one getting out of an automobile under similar conditions. (Emphasis in original.) Id. Similarly, in the instant case, to require that one getting out of a vehicle be in physical contact with the vehicle would be to render meaningless the additional policy terms of in and upon. We are persuaded by the logic of Whitmire v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co., supra , and similarly conclude that the act of getting out of a vehicle must extend to a point beyond an insured's physical contact with the vehicle, and the meaning of getting out must be related to the particular use of the vehicle and the hazards to be encountered from such use. In Day v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Inc., 420 So.2d 518, 519 (La.App.1982), the Louisiana Court of Appeals was called upon to decide whether a claimant was `alighting from' his vehicle at the time of his injury. In that case, the claimant witnessed a one-vehicle accident in which a vehicle had lost control and had skidded into the median of Interstate 20, a divided highway. Id. The claimant, who was driving a pickup truck owned by his employer, parked the truck on the side of the road and exited the truck. Id. As the claimant reached the rear of the truck, he saw that another accident was about to occur, as the same vehicle's driver was attempting to back up from the median and onto the Interstate, into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer. Id. The tractor-trailer struck the vehicle and then collided with the claimant's parked truck, pinning the claimant against the truck. Id. Citing Whitmire v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co., 254 S.C. 184, 174 S.E.2d 391 (1970), the Louisiana Court of Appeals determined that the act of alighting from a vehicle extended beyond the claimant's physical contact with the vehicle. Day v. Coca-Cola Bottling Co, supra . The court stated that it is not physical contact with the vehicle that serves as a basis to determine whether a person is injured while alighting from a vehicle but it is the relationship between the person and the vehicle, obviously of time and in distance with regard to the risk of alighting, that determines this specific coverage. Id. at 520. The court concluded that an insured is no longer alighting from a vehicle [w]hen the time and distance factors are no longer proximate to the risk to which a person exposes himself while alighting from a vehicle.... Id. Under the facts presented in Day, the court determined that the claimant was still alighting from his vehicle at the time of his injury. See, also, Westerfield v. LaFleur, 493 So.2d 600 (La.1986); Progressive American Ins. Co. v. Tanchuk, 616 So.2d 489 (Fla.App.1993); Crear v. National Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 469 So.2d 329 (La.App.1985). Other courts have reached similar conclusions. In Nelson v. Iowa Mutual Ins. Co., 163 Mont. 82, 515 P.2d 362 (1973), the decedent's vehicle slipped off the road during a blizzard and became stuck in a ditch. The decedent abandoned her vehicle, but was found frozen to death about 143 feet away from the vehicle. Id. The Supreme Court of Montana concluded that the decedent was alighting from her vehicle within the meaning of her insurance policy when she froze to death, stating that [u]nder the facts stipulated, the [decedent's] activities after the accident were solely directed to extricating herself from the car to a place of safety. Id. at 86, 515 P.2d at 364. See, also, State Farm Ins. Co. v. Holmes, 175 Ga.App. 655, 656, 333 S.E.2d 917, 918 (1985) (decedent was `alighting from' vehicle because he had not reached neutral zone when, few feet away from vehicle, decedent was swept away by floodwaters); Morris v. Continental Ins. Cos., 71 Ohio App.3d 581, 585-86, 594 N.E.2d 1106, 1109 (1991) (claimant's ward not `occupying' vehicle within meaning of insurance policy because he reached place of safety prior to returning to vicinity of vehicle). We find this authority to be helpful and persuasive. We hold, therefore, that the act of getting out of a vehicle must encompass the zone of danger or risk to which an insured is exposed by the act of exiting a vehicle under the circumstances. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Barton, 509 N.E.2d 244 (Ind.App.1987), applied such standards to factual circumstances remarkably similar to those of the instant case. In Barton, four teenage boys were riding in a vehicle when the driver lost control on a gravel road. The vehicle hit a utility pole, which broke off and fell on the vehicle. Id. No one was injured in the crash, but the vehicle was stuck against the pole in the ditch by the side of the road. Id. The boys exited through the driver's-side doors in order to avoid an electrical wire near the passenger's side, and the boys safely made it to the roadway. Id. The driver then returned to the vehicle to try and extricate it from the ditch, and the claimant went to the front of the vehicle to push the vehicle and try and help the driver move it. Id. The vehicle did not move, and the driver and the claimant began to return to the roadway, but when the claimant was about 3 feet from the vehicle, he stepped on a downed electrical wire in the grass and was severely burned. Id. The insurance policy in that case provided coverage for those occupying the vehicle, and defined occupying as `in(, on,) [or upon or] entering [into] or alighting from.' Id. at 247. The court determined that the claimant was not alighting from the vehicle at the time of his injury, because the claimant and the other occupants of the vehicle had exited the automobile immediately after it hit the utility pole and walked to the safety of the roadway. At this point, [the claimant] and his fellow occupants had accomplished their exit from the vehicle and the process of `alighting from' was complete. Id. at 248. Consequently, the claimant was no longer alighting from the vehicle when he returned to it to attempt to push it from the ditch. Id. In Barton, the claimant was denied coverage because he left the zone of danger associated with exiting the vehicle, therefore completing the act of alighting from the vehicle, and he was injured only upon his return. However, in the instant case, the undisputed testimony of Cody, the only witness to the accident, establishes as a matter of law that regardless of whether the distance traveled was 4 feet or 40 feet, Matthew did not pass beyond the zone of risk prior to sustaining his injury. Cody's deposition testimony established that Matthew exited the vehicle and proceeded directly toward the rear of the vehicle and the safety of the road and that Matthew was injured while doing so. Furthermore, we note that the injury was a direct result of the vehicle accident, as the powerline on which Matthew was electrocuted represented a danger only because the pole to which it was attached had been struck by the vehicle. Considering the factors of time and distance present in the instant case, we conclude, as a matter of law, that Matthew's injury occurred within the zone of risk to which he was exposed by exiting the vehicle under the circumstances. Therefore, Matthew was still getting out of the vehicle when his injury occurred, and he was occupying the vehicle at that time within the meaning of the Olsens' insurance policy. Farm Bureau's first assignment of error is without merit.