Court Opinion

ID: 9691126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 20:12:22.601993+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:02.973208
License: Public Domain

RANDALL, Judge
(dissenting).
*274I respectfully dissent. I suggest there is no good reason why the initial permission rule, which applies to operators of motor vehicles, should not apply to operators of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). The strong public policy argument supporting the initial permission rule for cars has never been seriously questioned. See Milbank Mut. Ins. Co. v. United States Fidelity & Guar. Co., 332 N.W.2d 160,165 (Minn.1983) (discussing public policy of holding motor vehicle owners responsible for torts committed by others using the motor vehicles with permission).
The last few decades have seen a proliferation in the use of ATVs, personal watercraft, snowmobiles, and other kinds of recreational transportation. They perform similar functions to automobiles (some ATV’s fall within at least one statutory definition of “motor vehicle,” Minn.Stat. § 168.011, subd. 4(b), (c) (1996)), but with one notable exception. None of the above has anywhere near the built-in safety features for drivers and for passengers that cars do. It would seem axiomatic if we are to spread the risk among drivers and insurance companies, see Black Hills Corp. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 73 F.3d 799, 807 n. 4 (8th Cir.1996) (referring to the “basic risk-spreading principles underlying insurance”), that the public policy supporting initial permission coverage on automobiles should be employed at least as stringently, if not more so, on ATVs.
I disagree with the majority’s simplistic analysis of a homeowner’s policy wherein it states that a homeowner’s policy “is not designed for the protection of the greater public welfare, but for the protection of the homeowner on his private property.” A built-in feature of all homeowner’s policies is the liability portion! As far as I know you cannot even delete the liability coverage to save a few dollars of premium. I would not doubt it if someone knowledgeable in the insurance industry said that most people buy their homeowner’s insurance thinking of first-party protection against fire and windstorm damage and do not focus on the fact, or perhaps do not even realize, that they have liability coverage. But if that is a fact, it still changes nothing. The majority of all automobile insurance policies in this country are not liability only, but are “full coverage” which includes first-party protection for the automobile owner against fire, windstorm, theft, and collision. In fact, I would suggest that a significant number of people, when they go shopping for insurance coverage for a new mortgaged vehicle, are more concerned about the collision and comprehensive aspects than the liability limits. Yet, the reasons they bought the automobile policy have nothing to do with the rule that on the liability portion, initial permission is the standard.
I further disagree with the majority’s speculation that 12-year-old Alicia did not have the capacity to grant her mother permission to drive the ATV. There is nothing in the record whatsoever to support an inference that it was close to a theft or tantamount to a conversion. It is pure speculation based simply on the mother-daughter relationship that the mother leaned on or coerced Alicia to give her permission. There are no facts to support that inference. From time to time, parents do borrow vehicles from their teenage sons or daughters who, although minors, are still licensed to drive. Yes, there may be a built-in inference that it is more difficult for a teenage son or daughter to refuse their mother or father as opposed to a friend, but that is just speculation until the record shows credible evidence that that happened. There is no such evidence here.
I respectfully dissent and would employ the identical analysis to this ATV that would be applied to an automobile and I would, thus, find coverage for the accident.