Court Opinion

ID: 9708014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:27:27.720765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:41.226946
License: Public Domain

*725Newton, J.,
dissenting in part.
The majority opinion holds that plaintiff may recover the value of certain fixtures temporarily removed from the Butler building and stored in the Taylor building. These fixtures consisted of I-beams and sliding panels which were normally affixed to and formed part of the Butler building. Also included in this category is an aeration fan used as a blower to aerate grain stored in the building and normally affixed to the Butler building as a part of it. These fixtures were not removed from the Butler building for the purpose of making “alterations, improvements, and repairs to any building” as authorized by the policy which extended coverage under such conditions. They were removed solely to facilitate cleaning of the building.
Each of the two buildings was separately covered in the same policy. The fixtures mentioned were integral parts of the Butler building and insured as such. Had they remained in the Butler building, they would not have been damaged. The policy is not ambiguous and clearly does not extend coverage to fixtures removed from the building for cleaning purposes.
It is intimated that the following clause — “Pemxission granted for such use of the premises as is usual and incidental in the business as conducted therein and to keep and use all articles and materials usual and incidental to said business, in such quantities as the exigencies of the business require, * * *” — extends the Taylor building coverage to these fixtures. This cannot be as these fixtures were not “usual and incidental” to the business conducted in that building. Furthermore, full recovery has been otherwise had as to the Taylor building coverage and unless the amount for which that building and its contents is insured is increased by judicial fiat, it cannot afford coverage for these fixtures.
To state that coverage is afforded because the' insured expected to have such coverage when the policy clearly does not afford it simply means that the insured *726can disregard the clear terms of the policy and rewrite it to suit itself. An unambiguous contract is not subject to change by construction. “A contract of insurance which is plain and unambiguous as to- its meaning must be enforced according to its terms the same as any other contract.” G. Bartling & Co. v. Harris Truck Lines, Inc., 175 Neb. 465, 122 N. W. 2d 243. See, also, Hazuka v. Maryland Cas. Co., 183 Neb. 336, 160 N. W. 2d 174.
I would disallow plaintiff’s claim as to these fixtures.
Spencer, J., joins in this dissent.