Court Opinion

ID: 9591780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:07:36.657517+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:51.341488
License: Public Domain

BROWN, J.
(dissenting). I disagree with the majority's interpretation of Whirlpool Corp. v. Ziebert, 197 Wis. 2d 144, 539 N.W.2d 883 (1995). The majority effectively reads Whirlpool to say that whenever a homeowner's liability policy contains a family exclusion clause, that exclusion automatically operates to bar coverage for direct and indirect suits. If a liability policy excludes coverage for one family member when another family member is the victim of the tort, the majority believes that the contribution action arising out of the injured family member's claim *491is also excluded. The underlying theory is that the liability is "identical."
In my view, Whirlpool does not go that far. Even a cursory reading of the case shows that the supreme court did only two things. First, it decided that family exclusion clauses which apply to contribution claims do not violate public policy. See id. at 151-52, 539 N.W.2d at 886. Second, the court determined that the exclusion clause in that case properly encompassed contribution actions. Id. at 155-56, 539 N.W.2d at 887.
The court started the analysis of this secdnd issue with the maxim that ambiguities in coverage are to be construed in favor of coverage, while exclusions are narrowly construed against the insurer. Id. at 152, 539 N.W.2d at 886. It then stated that this rule of strict construction is not applicable if the policy is unambiguous. Id.
Then, turning directly to the language within the exclusion, the court accented the portion which stated: "We do not cover bodily injury to an insured person ... whenever any benefit of this coverage would accrue directly or indirectly to an insured person." Id. at 153, 539 N.W.2d at 886. The court then used four pages to explain why this particular language was unambiguous and hence, valid.
The court specifically pointed out and italicized the phrase "directly or indirectly." Id. The court took the time to review the dictionary definitions of the two terms. Id. The court also favorably cited a California case construing a statute that authorized automobile insurers to write exclusions governing contribution claims. Our supreme court noted how adding the phrase "directly or indirectly" to the statute "clarified" the statute. Id. at 154, 539 N.W.2d at 887.
*492The supreme court's careful and lengthy attention to the language of the exclusion in Whirlpool informs me that the court believed that a family exclusion must be specifically tailored to contribution claims before the exclusion may be found to apply to such claims. Had the Whirlpool court intended to hold that family exclusions automatically applied to contribution claims, it would not have spent four pages discussing its view of the language in that exclusion. Yet, the majority in this case views the supreme court's detailed analysis as irrelevant. I cannot agree.
With regard to the exclusion in this case, I believe it is ambiguous, while the one in the Whirlpool case was not. The Whirlpool exclusion clearly told the reasonable insured that the insurer would not cover any bodily injury claim if the person benefiting from the insurance was relying on it to defend either a direct or an indirect suit. Id. at 153, 539 N.W.2d at 886. The exclusion in this case, however, does not do that. Indeed, nothing in this policy tells the reasonable insured that the family exclusion applies not only to suits directly brought by family members, but that the exclusion also applies when a third party brings an action. While, under Whirlpool, the family exclusion in this case could validly apply to third-party contribution actions, the exclusion is nontheless flawed because it does not clearly convey what the insurer claims it is designed to do.
Although an exclusion properly aimed at contribution claims does not have to contain the word "indirect" to be viable, the exclusion must contain some language which tells the reasonable insured that contribution claims are not covered. Mindful of the supreme court's long-standing rule that we must narrowly construe exclusions against the insurer, I *493would reverse because the exclusion in this case does not contain any such language.