Court Opinion

ID: 9517328
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:13:25.511214+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:52:29.097672
License: Public Domain

Newton, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
It is conceded that a prearranged racing or speed contest occurred and that the accident occurred a short distance beyond the finish line. The only question presented is one of interpretation. What is meant by the term “while used in” a prearranged race?
Cases involving this proposition, for the most part, display a disposition to go to great lengths in finding excuses to limit this exclusionary clause. In Krempel v. Noltze, 41 Wis. 2d 454, 164 N. W. 2d 227, the clause was disregarded on the ground that racing on a public highway was illegal and a Wisconsin statute provided that no policy could exclude from its coverage the op-eration of a motor vehicle for an unlawful purpose. In Mulconery v. Federal Auto. Ins. Assn., 230 Ill. App. 236, it was held that the evidence failed to show a race or speed test had occurred. In Alabama Farm Bureau *591Mut. Cas. Ins. Co., Inc. v. Cofield, 274 Ala. 299, 148 So. 2d 226, it was held that there was no proof of racing at the time of the accident although it occurred only a half mile from the .spot where a witness observed the cars take off side by side. In Country Mut. Ins. Co. v. Bergman, 38 Ill. App. 2d 268, 185 N. E. 2d 513, it was held that no prearranged race or speed test had occurred as the court interpreted the phrase “prearranged race or competitive speed test” to be limited to a commercial or business venture such as commercial race promotions. In only one instance has the exclusionary clause been sustained. It was enforced in Alabama Farm Bureau Mut. Cas. Ins. Co., Inc. v. Goodman, 279 Ala. 538, 188 So. 2d 268, 23 A. L. R. 3d 1437, where an accident occurred during the actual course of a race between a car and a bicycle.
Modem day interpretations of insurance policies display a definite trend toward a tendency to permit recoveries regardless of the contract provisions. Rather than follow the law of contracts and attempt to construe the policies in the light of what the parties understood and intended, they are strictly construed in favor of the insured. Simple and uncomplicated language no longer suffices in defining exclusions. To stand the light of legal interpretation, voluminous statements and descriptions defining them down to “a gnat’s eyebrow” are required.
There would not appear to be any good and sufficient ground for failing to accord insurance contracts the same reasonable interpretation, under all existing circumstances, accorded other contracts. The policy under consideration also contains an exclusionary clause as follows: “* * * while used as a public or livery conveyance, * * It does not say it is confined to a situation in which the automobile is used in such a business. If an automobile owner or operator, not in such a business, agreed to haul a passenger for hire when does the “livery conveyance” terminate? Does it *592terminate immediately on his dropping the passenger at the designated destination or does the engagement in the livery business continue on the return trip? Logically it would continue as the entire round trip is occasioned by engaging in the “livery business.”
In a drag race, the engagement in the race may involve more than occurs over the designated course. If two cars are to approach the starting line at a designated speed, the approach is also part of the race. In view of the fact that in a race the participants cannot stop immediately at the finish line, it seems that the slowing down and stopping is also essentially a part of the race although this occurs beyond the finish line. The cars are still being used in a race or speed contest although the winner has been determined. Such is also the reasoning used in negligence cases. In Andreassen v. Esposito, 90 N. J. Super. 170, 216 A. 2d 607, where one of two participants had stopped and abandoned the race, liability continued for “results naturally and proximately ensuing.”
In 38 Am. Jur., Negligence, § 55, p. 703, it is stated: “Proximity in point of time, space, or distance, of an event to an injury is important in determining liability for negligence only in so far as it bears upon proximity of causation. The proximate cause of an injury is not necessarily the immediate cause; not necessarily the cause nearest in time, distance, or space. Assuming that there is a direct, natural, and continuous sequence between an act and an injury, through which the force of the act operated without the interposition of separate force other than such a force as the act itself might have set in motion, the act can be accepted as the proximate cause of the injury without reference to its separation from the injury in point of time or distance.”
In Lemons v. Kelly, 239 Ore. 354, 397 P. 2d 784, it is stated: “It was also for the jury to decide if the racing was the cause of the accident. For even if the race had terminated some seconds before it would still be for the *593jury to decide if there were a causal connection between the racing and the accident.”
In the present case, although Larry Tournor had crossed the finish line and was gradually slowing down, he was still traveling at an excessive and illegal rate of speed at the time of the. accident. To hold, as does the majority opinion, that the exclusionary clause applied prior to his having reached the finish line, but not 3 feet beyond, is not reasonable. This court has said that: “Starting and stopping are as much an essential part of travel on a motor vehicle as is ‘motion.’ ” Greyhound Corp. v. Lyman-Richey Sand & Gravel Corp., 161 Neb. 152, 72 N. W. 2d 669. Just as surely as starting and stopping is a part of traveling in a motor vehicle, it is also part of racing. Larry Tournor stated he was intending to continue on to a crossroad before turning and going back. This may have a bearing on the question of “stopping” after the race, but it cannot be denied that he was proceeding at the time of the accident at a high and excessive rate of speed, engendered by and resulting from the race, and he had not yet reduced his speed to a normal or lawful rate. His automobile was still being used in racing and came within the term “while used in any prearranged racing or speed contest.”
White, C. J., and Carter, J., join in the foregoing dissent.