Opinion ID: 1374917
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the district court properly calculated the respective liabilities of the insurance companies

Text: North Pacific argues that, because the Idaho Motor Vehicle Financial Responsibility Act (IMVRA), I.C. § 49-1201 et seq., requires that U-Save carry liability insurance on vehicles it rents, the district court should have rejected the other insurance clause in the Empire policy as violative of the IMVRA. We disagree. The IMVRA does not address the efficacy of other insurance clauses in cases where more than one insurance policy is at issue. [1] That issue was directly addressed by this Court's decision in Sloviaczek v. Estate of Puckett, 98 Idaho 371, 565 P.2d 564 (1977). In Sloviaczek, this Court adopted the rule stated by the Oregon Supreme Court in Lamb-Weston, Inc. v. Oregon Auto. Ins. Co., 219 Or. 110, 341 P.2d 110 (1959), that conflicting other insurance clauses are mutually repugnant and must be disregarded. Sloviaczek, 98 Idaho at 375, 565 P.2d at 568. North Pacific's assertion, that Empire's other insurance clause should be ignored while North Pacific's other insurance clause should be enforced, directly conflicts with this Court's holding in Sloviaczek that  Lamb-Weston should apply in all cases where conflicting `other insurance' clauses of the excess, pro rata or escape types are found. Id. See also State v. Continental Casualty Co., 126 Idaho 178, 185, 879 P.2d 1111, 1118 (1994) (applying Lamb-Weston rule). We therefore conclude that the district court properly required North Pacific to pay a portion of the damages caused by Pulley's accident. North Pacific also contends that the district court improperly based its decision on the fact that Pulley intended to rely on his North Pacific policy, rather than the Empire policy. Sloviaczek directs that the Lamb-Weston rule be applied in all cases where an insured is covered by multiple policies which contain conflicting other insurance clauses. Pulley's subjective expectations of coverage are irrelevant to the question of whether there are conflicting other insurance clauses, and have no impact on the application of the Lamb-Weston apportionment of the loss. The district court also properly computed North Pacific's share of liability according to the formula required by Sloviaczek: when the losses are less than the combined limits of all applicable policies, they should be allocated pro rata in proportion to the amount of insurance provided by the respective policies. Sloviaczek, 98 Idaho at 375, 565 P.2d at 568. At the time of the accident, North Pacific's policy provided $100,000 of liability coverage and the Empire policy provided $15,000 of liability coverage. Thus, North Pacific provided eighty-seven percent of the combined coverage available under the two policies, and is responsible for that portion of the total liability incurred by Pulley.