Court Opinion

ID: 9527765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:33:58.844157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:11.547519
License: Public Domain

SIMONETT, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. If the mother had simply forgotten that she had left the car idling in the garage and the children were asphyxiated by carbon monoxide leaking into the house, I would suppose the auto liability policy would cover the death claims. The factual distinction in the case before us is that the mother intentionally left the motor running. Yet in both cases the motor vehicle is functioning or operating exactly the same. The only difference is the operator’s intent.
I do not think the operator’s intent is controlling in the circumstances of this case. Our inquiry is how the car is being used, not why, and here the car is being used in a manner consistent with use of a motor vehicle as a motor vehicle.1 Motor vehicles are used for transportation, so *924when we say that coverage is afforded “for transportation purposes,” we are saying that coverage is afforded when the motor vehicle is used as a motor vehicle, i.e., it is being used for its functional purpose. “Purpose” refers to the machine’s function, not necessarily the operator’s intent.
I would not adopt the “inherent-nature-of-the-vehicle” test, which really says nothing. “Nature” refers to character or disposition, and, notwithstanding labels such as Mustang and Skylark, motor vehicles do not have characters or dispositions. What they do have is a function, and automobile insurance coverage attaches to activities involving that inherent functional purpose. Here, the car was functioning as a car, and this activity was an active accessory of the child fatalities. It seems to me the car was, in the sense we have used the phrase, being used “for transportation purposes.” See Haagenson v. National Farmers Union Property & Casualty Co., 277 N.W.2d 648 (Minn.1979). On this ground, therefore, I would affirm the court of appeals decision.

. The question of why a car is being used in a particular manner may bring the intentional act exclusion into play. Here, however, the operator intended only her own death, and the deaths of the children were accidental.