Court Opinion

ID: 9534041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:36:30.086341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:23.325812
License: Public Domain

KAUFMAN, J.
I concur with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court erred in granting a directed verdict in favor of plaintiffs on the coverage issue and that the cause must be remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. However, I cannot subscribe fully to the analysis and reasoning of the majority opinion and am concerned that they are erroneous in part and will lead to yet further confusion in this seemingly perplexing area of the law. I therefore separately concur.
The majority posits that the confusion evidenced in the reported decisions results from the failure to distinguish between first party and third party cases. The majority appears to hold that the “efficient proximate cause” or “predominant cause” analysis of Sabella v. Wisler (1963) 59 Cal.2d 21 [27 Cal.Rptr. 689, 377 P.2d 889] (hereafter Sabella) is applicable in all first party cases and that the concurrent-cause analysis of State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Partridge (1973) 10 Cal.3d 94 [109 Cal.Rptr. 811, 514 P.2d 123] (hereafter Partridge) is not applicable in first party cases except perhaps, as I understand it, where the concurrent causes are truly independent of each other and neither one can fairly said to be the “efficient” or “predominant” cause of the loss. Although, the majority opinion does not expressly say so, it leaves the impression that the concurrent-causation rule of Partridge is applicable to third party cases.
While I recognize important differences between property damage insurance and liability insurance and first party and third party cases, I am doubtful that those differences compel or warrant two separate and entirely different rules for ascertaining the coverage provided by the two kinds of policies. In my view, the confusion in this area of the law results primarily from two major flaws in the Partridge decision which have made it all but impossible to reconcile with Sabella and which ought to be recognized and disapproved.
The first flaw in Partridge is, as the majority suggests, that it imported into the determination of coverage, concepts and rules of tort law inapplica*414ble to the contractual question of the coverage afforded by an insurance policy, and, based on them, adopted the tort rule of concurrent causation to determine coverage. One of the principal rationalizations for the rule announced in Partridge was that if two different persons had separately performed the two negligent acts involved therein, ((1) filing down the gun’s trigger to a hair trigger and (2) driving the vehicle off the road over rough terrain with the gun pointed at the passenger), each actor as a joint tortfeasor would have been liable. Therefore, if the trigger filer had a homeowner’s policy including personal liability coverage and the vehicle driver had auto liability insurance, both insurers would have been obliged to indemnify their respective insureds in respect to a judgment against them.
That rationalization accurately reflected tort law, but it failed entirely to recognize that the problem before the court in Partridge was not the joint and several liability of joint tortfeasors, but the interpretation of a homeowner’s policy owned by the single tortfeasor, which expressly excluded any injury arising out of the use of a motor vehicle. One might ask what the situation would have been if there were in fact two tortfeasors but the vehicle driver had only a homeowner’s policy and the trigger filer had only an automobile liability insurance policy. Both tortfeasors would still have been liable under tort law, but neither policy would have afforded coverage for the conduct of the insured and neither insurer would have had any liability. The point is that tort liability on the part of the insured does not establish liability on the part of the insurer unless the policy affords coverage for the conduct of the insured and that is to be determined by contract principles, not tort principles, in both first party and third party cases.
There are to be sure substantial differences between property damage insurance and liability insurance and first party and third party cases. To start with, coverage in property damage insurance is typically phrased in terms of injury caused by certain “risks” or “perils” set forth in the policy, whereas coverage in liability insurance is typically couched in terms of the insured’s liability for loss resulting from “an occurrence” as defined in the policy. Because of this difference it may be that the reasonable expectations of insureds will be different under property damage and liability insurance policies. Further, there is a public policy consideration involved in coverage determinations under liability policies that may not be involved in coverage determinations under property damage policies; third party injury and the potential burden on the public fisc in the absence of compensation. These differences and perhaps others may legitimately affect the determination of coverage. But the question of coverage in both first party and third party cases is a contract question and must be determined under contract principles. (Gribaldo, Jacobs, Jones & Associates v. Agrippina Versicherunges A. G. (1970) 3 Cal.3d 434, 442 [91 Cal.Rptr. 6, 476 P.2d 406] and cases there *415cited; Atlas Assurance Co. Ltd. v. McCombs Corp. (1983) 146 Cal.App.3d 135, 143 [194 Cal.Rptr. 66]; see also Producers Dairy Delivery Co., Inc. v. Sentry Ins. Co. (1986) 41 Cal.3d 903, 912 [226 Cal.Rptr. 558, 718 P.2d 920]; Gray v. Zurich Ins. Co. (1966) 65 Cal.2d 263, 269-270 [54 Cal.Rptr. 104, 419 P.2d 168].)
The other major flaw in the Partridge decision is that it mischaracterized the causes of the injury in that case as “independent” and therefore misapplied the rule it was attempting to announce. If there could be a case in which the concurrent causation rule might be appropriate it would be where the causes of the injury were truly independent of each other and related to the injury in such a way that neither could fairly be said to be the “efficient” or “predominant” cause. (See maj. opn. p. 409, ante, fn. 8.)
But that was not the case in Partridge. There the filing of the trigger had set the stage all right; it was in fact an accident waiting to happen. But the hair trigger was activated by the other cause, the bumping and bouncing of the vehicle as it was driven off the pavement over the rough and bumpy ground in pursuit of jackrabbits with the gun pointed at the passenger. Thus, under Sabella principles it was the negligent driving of the vehicle over the rough terrain with the gun pointed at the passenger that was the “efficient” or “predominant” cause of the injury and coverage for such accidental injury arising out of the use of a vehicle was expressly excluded by the homeowner’s policy. Where the court in Partridge went wrong is readily apparent. It looked to the absence of interrelationship between the two acts of negligence and concluded they were independent (Partridge, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 104, fn. 10 [“ . . . [T]here both causes were independent of each other: the filing of the trigger did not ‘cause’ the careless driving, nor vice versa.”].)
It is not enough, however, that the negligent acts are independent. That is frequently the case. The minimum requirement that could make the Partridge concurrent cause rule appropriate would be that the concurrent causes of the injury were wholly independent of each other and related to the injury in such a way that neither could fairly be said to be the “efficient” or “predominant” cause of the injury. (See e.g., maj. opn. p. 409, fn. 8.) This analytic fault in Partridge has led a number of courts to misconstrue Partridge’s “independence” requirement and thus erroneously to apply the Partridge rule. (See e.g., Farmer’s Ins. Exchange v. Adams (1985) 170 Cal.App.3d 712, 722 [216 Cal.Rptr. 287]; Premier Ins. Co. v. Welch (1983) 140 Cal.App.3d 720, 728 [189 Cal.Rptr. 657]; Safeco Ins. Co. of America v. Guyton (9th Cir. 1982) 692 F.2d 551, 554-555.)
Thus, while I would not say there is no case in which an independent concurrent causation rule similar to that set forth in Partridge might be *416useful or helpful, I find Partridge fundamentally flawed in the several respects mentioned and would overrule it to the extent it is inconsistent with the views here expressed.
Panelli, J., concurred.