Court Opinion

ID: 9752363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:01:02.634415+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:15.155448
License: Public Domain

Bogdanski, J.
(dissenting). The majority opinion apparently holds that the term “household” is unambiguous and means “those who dwell under the *460same roof.”1 I cannot agree. That interpretation may have adverse consequences for a significant segment of our population. Recent statistics show that for every three marriages occurring in Connecticut today, one marriage is ending in divorce. United States Bureau of the Census, “Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1974” (95th Ed.), p. 67. To follow the majority’s narrow definition of household without regard for varying factual situations will strip many such broken families of their insurance coverage.
When the terms of an insurance policy are plain and unambiguous, they are to be accorded their natural and ordinary meaning. LaBonte v. Federal Mutual Ins. Co., 159 Conn. 252, 256, 268 A.2d 663; Raffel v. Travelers Indemnity Co., 141 Conn. 389, 392, 106 A.2d 716. When, however, the words of an insurance contract are, without violence, susceptible of two or more interpretations, that which will sustain the claim and cover the loss must, in preference, be adopted. Raffel v. Travelers Indemnity Co., supra; King v. Travelers Ins. Co., 123 Conn. 1, 4, 192 A. 311; Dickinson v. Maryland Casualty Co., 101 Conn. 369, 379, 125 A. 866. Courts follow that rule because the insurance company’s attorneys, officers, or agents prepare the policy and it is their language that must be interpreted. Scranton v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 141 Conn. 313, 316, 105 A.2d 780; King v. Travelers Ins. Co., supra; Rinaldi v. Prudential Ins. Co., 118 Conn. 419, 424, 172 A. 777; *461Westmoreland v. General Accident F. & L. Assurance Corporation, 144 Conn. 265, 274, 129 A.2d 623 (Daly, J., dissenting).
Words such as “family” and “household” can have a variety of meanings depending upon the facts to which they must be applied. See Rathbun v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 144 Conn. 165, 168, 128 A.2d 327. They “cannot be so limited and strait-jacketed as always to mean, regardless of facts and circumstances, a collective body of persons who live in one house under one common head or manager.” Johnson v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., 252 F.2d 158, 161 (8th Cir.). It is true that the word household is frequently used to designate persons related by marriage or blood, who dwell together as a family under a single roof; see note, 78 A.L.R.2d 1404, 1405; but numerous cases have held that members of a family need not actually reside under a common roof in order to be deemed part of the same household. See, e.g., American Service Mutual Ins. Co. v. Pugh, 271 F.2d 174 (8th Cir.); Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. v. Miller, 276 F. Sup. 341 (D. Kan.); Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co. v. Continental Casualty Co., 387 P.2d 104 (Alaska); Central Manufacturers’ Mutual Ins. Co. v. Friedman, 213 Ark. 9, 209 S.W.2d 102; Hardware Mutual Casualty Co. v. Home Indemnity Co., 241 Cal. App. 2d 303, 50 Cal. Rptr. 508; Cal-Farm Ins. Co. v. Boisseranc, 151 Cal. App. 2d 775, 312 P.2d 401; Taylor v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., 171 So. 2d 816 (La. App.), aff’d, 248 La. 246, 178 So. 2d 238; American Casualty Co. v. Harleysville Ins., 238 Md. 322, 208 A.2d 597; Mazzilli v. Acc. & Cas. Ins. Co. of Winterthur, 35 N.J. 1, 170 A.2d 800; Teetsel v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co., 37 Pa. D. & C.2d 246; American States Ins. Co. *462v. Walker, 26 Utah 2d 161, 486 P.2d 1042; Doern v. Crawford, 30 Wis. 2d 206, 140 N.W.2d 193; Raymond v. Century Indemnity Co., 264 Wis. 429, 59 N.W.2d 459.
Cases discussing the term “household” are collected and discussed in note, 46 A.L.R.3d 1026; note, 78 A.L.R.2d 1404; note, 50 A.L.R.2d 120; note, 1 A.L.R.2d 561; and 19 A Words & Phrases (Perm. Ed.) 481. While they are by no means consistent, the cases interpreting insurance policies can be divided into two categories: those involving clauses that exclude from coverage members of the insured’s household and those that extend coverage to such persons. Both categories attempt to sustain the insured’s claim by applying the rules of construction stated above. Thus, in the extension cases “household” is broadly interpreted, while in the exclusion cases it is given a more restricted meaning. Cal-Farm Ins. Co. v. Boisseranc, supra, 782.
In Mazzilli v. Acc. & Cas. Ins. Co. of Winterthur, supra, a leading case on the construction of the word “household,” a father owned property on which a house and bungalow were located. His wife and son lived in the bungalow while he lived 150 feet away in the house. The couple were separated and the wife had custody of the son, although the boy had a close relationship with his father and had the freedom of both the bungalow and the house. A neighbor, who was seriously wounded when the boy fired a shotgun at him, recovered a $10,000 verdict against the mother. The issue in the case was whether the mother and son were residents of the father’s household since coverage was extended to such persons under the father’s liability insurance contract with the defendant.
*463The defendant insurer contended that the wife was not living under the same roof as the husband and therefore was not covered. The court ruled otherwise, saying that both dwellings constituted the household within the contemplation of the policy. The “same roof” concept of household was discarded under the facts of that case. The court pointed out that there is no absolute requirement in the law that members or residents of the household must live under a common roof. The court further noted (p. 19) that especially meaningful in the factual context was the relationship between the father and the son and the existence of a “substantially integrated family relationship.”
The facts in the present ease show that the father was in a substantial sense a member of the same “household” as his son. While the father had his own room on Main Street, he spent a considerable amount of time with his children and family, including his former wife, on Whiting Street, staying overnight on numerous occasions, baby-sitting for his former wife, keeping some of his clothes there and having equipment there. He supported his children and was close to all of them, especially the plaintiff Richard.
The father, reading the insurance contract, would not be likely to understand the word “household” as excluding his children from protection. The defendant’s experts, in writing such a contract, should define language with such precision and clarity that the ordinary man will have no difficulty understanding what he is buying. See Scranton v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 141 Conn. 313, 316, 105 A.2d 780; Bessette v. Fidelity & Casualty Co., 111 Conn. 549, 555, 150 A. 706. The use of innocuous language in *464an insurance policy susceptible to reasonably different connotations in the minds of policyholders should not be encouraged by the courts.
Since the father and the plaintiff son lived together at Whiting Street and to a lesser degree át Main Street under circumstances that amply disclosed a “substantially integrated family relationship,” the requirements of the policy were met. I find myself in complete agreement with the trial court’s conclusion that the plaintiff Richard was a resident of his father’s household.
I would find no error and would reaffirm the order to arbitrate.

 That holding is somewhat diluted by the majority’s attempt to distinguish the facts of Mazzilli v. Acc. & Cas. Ins. Co. of Winterthur, 35 N.J. 1, 170 A.2d 800, from the facts of the present case insofar as the Mazzilli case held, as a matter of law, that “household” is an ambiguous term that cannot be restricted to a “one family-one roof” meaning.