Court Opinion

ID: 9728354
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:05:55.565739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:47.990364
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I agree with the majority opinion that the stipulation of facts that formed the basis of the lower court’s judgment is sketchy. Indeed, the relevant facts are contained in the following paragraphs of the stipulation:
VII.
Sally Jo Schulte was the niece of Harriet Kretsinger (the daughter of Harriet Kretsinger’s brother) and had lived and resided in the home of Harriet Kretsinger since May 23, 1972, continually to the date of the accident and during which time Harriet Kretsinger had provided the entire support of Sally Jo Schulte, including but not limited to food, shelter and clothing without any outside aid or assistance whatsoever.
VIII.
Sally Jo Schulte came to live in the home of Harriet Kretsinger from the State Training School at Plankinton, with the approval and consent of Floyd La-Vake of Watertown, South Dakota, a parole officer with the State Pardon and Parole Board.
IX.
Prior to the accident here involved, Sally Jo Schulte had applied for enrollment and had been accepted in the vocational school at Watertown, South Dakota and was due to begin her studies there during the latter part of August, 1972, and the purpose of the trip during which the accident occurred was to confer with school officials in Watertown and make further arrangements for attending school in the fall.
X.
The home of Harriet Kretsinger is located at or near Elkton, South Dakota.
*457If we are to draw inferences from the stipulation, then it seems only reasonable to conclude that upon her release from the State Training School (whatever the reason for her commitment there) Sally Jo Schulte, with the approval and consent of her parole officer, came to live in the home of her aunt because she had no other home.
One of the cases cited in the majority opinion states:
[T]he terms “resident or member of the same household,” as used in policies of automobile liability insurance, are not ambiguous and, therefore, should be construed in light of their plain and common meaning. It makes no difference whether the terms are employed to define exclusion or inclusion from coverage, or whether the question is one of creating or terminating the relationship.
Pamperin v. Milwaukee Mutual Ins. Co., 55 Wis.2d 27, 37, 197 N.W.2d 783, 789 (1972). Under the facts given to us, Sally Jo Schulte was a resident of her aunt’s household.
I have no quarrel with the proposition of law for which the majority cites the Pampe-rin case. What I do object to is that in order to apply that principle of law to reach the conclusion that the exclusionary clause of the insurance policy does not apply, the Court must draw inference upon inference from a stipulation so devoid of relevant facts. One would think that plaintiff could have offered at least some evidence regarding her relationship with her daughter, the circumstances under which her daughter was sent to the State Training School, and the circumstances under which it was decided that her daughter should be placed in the home of Harriet Kretsinger. Indeed, had the parole officer alone been called to testify regarding the circumstances under which Sally Jo Schulte was placed in the home of her aunt and whether it was contemplated at that time that she would leave the home in the fall to attend school in Watertown, we could very well have had an adequate factual basis upon which to reach the conclusion that Sally Jo was not residing in the same household as the principal insured within the meaning of the exclusionary clause of the policy. The facts of this case, or so few of them as have been vouchsafed to us, are far different from those in the Pamperin case, supra, where it was clear that the relative had moved into the home to give only temporary assistance during the illness of an aged relative.
Although it is hard to quarrel with the result reached by the majority opinion, I am troubled by the fact that in order to reach this result the Court has been forced to rely so greatly upon inferences to supply the proof that plaintiff was so unwilling to adduce. Why plaintiff’s reluctance to establish an adequate factual basis for her claim should be thus rewarded I do not know, but it does little to enhance the appellate process to strain the limits of inferential reasoning to supply that which the record does not offer.
I would affirm the decision of the trial court.