Opinion ID: 2516950
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: caselaw definitions of collision

Text: This court recently examined, although in a different context, a similar collision requirement in HRS § 291E-21 (Supp.2004), which mandates that police officers take a blood sample to determine intoxication in the event of a collision where the officer has probable cause to believe a person involved committed an enumerated traffic offense. State v. Williams, 114 Hawai'i 406, 163 P.3d 1143 (2007). In Williams, a police officer arrived at an accident scene to find a motorcycle on the side of the roadway, and a male party about fifteen feet away, close to the shoulder of the roadway. Id. at 407, 163 P.3d at 1144. The male was bleeding from a cut on his lip and the officer detected an odor of alcohol from him. Id. At trial, the officer testified that he did not find any debris on the ground, skid marks, or anything like that, and concluded that the party fell from his motorcycle to the ground. Id. at 408, 163 P.3d at 1145. The officer later ordered that a blood draw be taken of the defendant, without the latter's consent. The defendant in Williams had asserted that the police officer was not authorized to order a blood draw under HRS § 291E-21, because evidence of a collision was lacking. Id. at 410, 163 P.3d at 1147. In order to assess whether the evidence was sufficient to constitute a collision, this court consulted the Webster's dictionary definition: Collision is defined as the action or an instance of colliding, violent encounter, or forceful striking together typically by accident and so as to harm or impede. Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 446 (1993). Williams, 114 Hawai'i at 410, 163 P.3d at 1147. The court further stated that although single-vehicle accidents may qualify as collisions, in such a case the vehicle must nevertheless `collide' with another object. Id. (citing State v. Entrekin, 98 Hawai'i 221, 223, 47 P.3d 336, 338 (2002), in which a automobile crossed the center divide of a highway and collided with a dirt embankment.). [15] Noting the absence of any evidence of damage to the motorcycle or of the motorcycle's position with respect to the road, the lack of physical evidence indicating a collision, and the officer's testimony concluding that the defendant fell off the bike, this court concluded that the evidence was insufficient to establish a collision. Id. Williams did not directly address the question whether the motorcycle's position at the side of the road indicated that it collided with the road when the defendant apparently fell off the bike. However, by finding the evidence of collision insufficient, we implicitly rejected the notion that a vehicle striking the roadside qualifies as a collision. A more direct consideration of the meaning of collision can be found in an older Hawai'i case, Alexander v. Home Insurance Co., 27 Haw. 326 (Terr.1923). The sole question in Alexander was the liability of the insurer under the `collision clause' of its policy for damages occasioned an automobile insured by it which accidently capsized or tipped over on to the road over which it was being operated. Id. at 326-27. The insured car capsized when the driver applied the brakes suddenly to avoid a collision with a horse that had dashed into the road, coming into violent contact with the ground at the side of the road sustaining damage to its body, machinery, and equipment. Id. at 327. The insured, arguing that the accident was covered under the accidental collision policy of its contract, asserted that the violent contact with the road was a `collision' between the automobile and the side of the road within the definition of that term as employed in the policy. Id. The Alexander court ultimately held that the accident did not involve a collision. Id. at 332. To reach this conclusion, the court relied upon the generally accepted meaning of the word, rather than what it termed the technical lexicographical definition, under which the accident might be classified as the striking together of two bodies and thus a collision. Id. at 328. The court explained the popular meaning of collision in the following passage: One describing the accident in the instant case would not refer to it as a collision. The term capsize or tip-over as employed in the submission would be more reasonably descriptive of the accident. Were one to refer to an automobile as being in collision without giving further details, the mind of the auditor would naturally visualize an automobile coming in contact with some other vehicle or some perpendicular object obstructing the course of its progress. This thought is best illustrated, perhaps by the not uncommon accident to a pedestrian slipping and falling to the pavement. One would not say that he collided with the pavement. A fall is not spoken of as a collision. Id. at 328-29 (emphasis added). The court also quoted the Wisconsin Supreme Court's similar rejection of a hypertechnical meaning of collision: Upon its face this appears to be good logic, but the conclusion is neither convincing nor satisfying. One instinctively withholds assent to the result. The reason is that it makes a novel and unusual use and application of the word `collision'. We do not speak of falling bodies as colliding with the earth. In common parlance the apple falls to the ground; it does not collide with the earth. So with all falling bodies. We speak of the descent as a fall, not a collision. In popular understanding a collision does not result, we think, from the force of gravity alone. Such an application of the term lacks the support of `widespread and frequent usage'. Id. at 331 (quoting Bell v. American Ins. Co., 173 Wis. 533, 181 N.W. 733 (1921)). Courts in other jurisdictions have also examined whether similar accidents were collisions in the context of insurance coverage. [16] A notable case representing a view opposite to that of Alexander is Payne v. Western Casualty & Surety Co., 379 S.W.2d 209 (Mo. Ct.App.1964). In Payne, the insured's tractor and trailer slipped and went onto the soft shoulder of a highway, causing the tractor and trailer wheels to be submerged in soft soil and materially damaging the trailer and its load. Id. at 210. The court was required to determine whether such contact with the soft shoulder of the highway was a collision of the automobile with another object under the insurance policy. Id. With regard to collision, the court set out the following reasoning: Generally speaking, the determination of whether there has been a `collision' within the intent and meaning of the policy involves (1) whether there was an object which was struck, and (2) the manner of the striking. As noted by the authorities, there is an irreconcilable conflict in the efforts of the various courts in construing the meaning and application of the word `collision' as it appears in insurance policy clauses of the type before us. Some courts construe the word narrowly by limiting its meaning to a so-called `popular conception', i.e. the striking with force some foreign or perpendicular object, and thereby exclude contact with the ground of the highway or shoulder. The majority of the courts, often noting there is no proof that the word `collision' has some commonly known and generally recognized restrictive meaning in insurance contracts take the viewpoint that the word `collision' . . . should be defined broadly and in its dictionary `striking against', thus including every contact with any part of the highway. Id. at 211. Adopting a broad definition of collision, the Missouri appellate court next addressed the holdings of other courts with respect to impacts between motor vehicles and the roads they travel on: Courts which have ascribed to a dictionary or broad definition of the word `collision' have held that an impact between a motor vehicle and obstacles on the road such as rocks, barricades, holes, excavations, and washouts are collisions with another object within the policy provisions. On the other hand it has been held that contact of an automobile with the road itself, as where the road surface is irregular or has rough spots, does not constitute a collision with an object within the meaning of the policy, and this sometimes because of a general feeling that the policy as `popularly understood' was not intended to furnish coverage for that type of accident and sometimes because it was felt that since the automobile wheels were already in constant contact with the highway surface and in a sense striking it as the wheels turned around the collision clause was intended to refer to some other object than the road upon which the automobile is being driven. However, it is obvious from a study of the decisions that where the impact or striking occurs other than on the road proper, i.e. not on that part constructed, intended and used for travel thereon, the tendency is more liberal toward finding coverage upon impact between the vehicle and another object, including those formed by the terrain. Id. at 212 (emphasis added). In applying these principles to the stipulated incident, the Missouri appellate court ultimately concluded that a collision within the meaning of the insurance contract had taken place. In reaching this result, the court did not conclude that a mere striking of the road was sufficient; rather, it described the incident as the sudden contact of a moving body, the vehicle, with an obstruction in its line of motion, which it characterized as a solid bank of earth . . . not part of the regular roadway intended and used for travel, as well as the somewhat perpendicular dirt. Id. at 212-13.