Court Opinion

ID: 9733214
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 16:58:12.75386+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:39.465974
License: Public Domain

OTIS, Justice
(dissenting).
I would reinstate the decision of the arbitration panel which found that respondent Rosenberger was not a resident of her stepfather’s home and therefore was not covered by the uninsured motorist provisions of her stepfather’s insurance policy.
Whether Rosenberger was a resident of her stepfather’s home turns on the application of Minn.Stat. § 65B.43(5) (1980). That statute defines a resident as one who “resides in the same household with the named insured if that person usually makes his home in the same family unit, even though he temporarily lives elsewhere.” Id. (emphasis added).
The record shows that from 1957 through June 1974, Rosenberger lived with her mother off and on for a period of 15 years. In 1974 respondent ran away from home, and her mother placed her in a group home. By the end of the year respondent had left the group home and had taken up residence with one Lee Kingen. From 1974 through 1976, she and Kingen lived in three different places. For a brief time they lived at his parents’ house.
*311In August 1976 Rosenberger spent five weeks at her mother’s house, but in October 1976 she resumed residence with Kingen. In April 1977, two months prior to her motorcycle accident, she asked permission to stay with her mother and stepfather until she could find another place to live. They reluctantly agreed to take her in, but only with the understanding that as soon as possible, she would find a paying job, rent an apartment, and move out of her parents’ home. Although she acknowledges that this was the understanding, she subsequently refused to find work, lied to her parents about her job status, and made no effort to find an apartment.
The trial court took no additional testimony in reaching its decision and the facts elicited at the hearing before the arbitrators are therefore governing. Judge Robert B. Gillespie and Robert J. Monson in their capacity as majority arbitrators made the following findings:
Anderson [plaintiff’s stepfather] informed her [plaintiff] that she could stay only a couple of weeks. A few articles of household goods were placed in the Anderson garage, and her clothing, in paper bags, were [sic] placed in the basement where she was provided with a rollaway bed. The Andersons told Jean then and on several later occasions that she could only stay in their home temporarily. While there, Jean ate only some of her meals in the home, was gone some entire weeknights and every weekend and spent several days in Elk River and Denver. She did no housework and had little social contact with the Andersons.
Upon learning in May that Jean had been fired from her job, her mother told Jean to get a job and told her she would have to move because she did not want Jean to be around her younger sister. Neither Mr. or Mrs. Anderson considered Jean as a member of their family unit, only as an unwelcome guest. After repeated demands that she leave the home, the Andersons ordered her to get out with a deadline of June 4th or 5th.
On June 3rd, Jean left the Anderson home, with a bag of clothes and made a trip to Bayfield, Wisconsin, with Jeffrey Steiner and his brother, returning to Minnesota late Tuesday night on June 7th. She did not go back to the Anderson house but picked up her car in the Anderson yard and drove around all night without sleep. The next morning, June 8th, Jean registered at the Anoka Holiday Inn (about 10 or 15 miles from the Anderson home) where she intended to spend the night with McCormick. In the afternoon, she met McCormick at the Inn, and later they, together with Peterson and Sue Cruikschank, drove on their motorcycles to St. Cloud. On their return trip, the instant accident occurred. At the hospital, Jean gave her address as 2325 Crosstown Blvd. N.E., Fridley, Minnesota.
In the instant case, there is no evidence that Jean intended to remain at the Anderson home. To the contrary, she fully understood that she was to move out and was under orders to do so before June 5, 1977. Her leaving the home before that date and never returning there (although she was in the yard on June 7th), raises a persuasive inference that she knew she could not stay longer at the Anderson home and did not reside there on June 9th. There is no testimony on her part that she intended to return and there is ample evidence that the Andersons did understand that she would not return. Likewise, there is uncontroverted testimony that Jean’s presence at the Anderson home was transient and governed by conditions completely inconsistent with her contention that she usually made her home in the same family unit or that she was treated as a member of the family. Even the Andersons’ charitable offer to have Jean come to their home to recuperate was conditioned upon her leaving as soon as she recovered from her injuries.
In distinguishing Engebretson v. Austvold, 199 Minn. 399, 271 N.W. 809 (1937) and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Borg, 396 F.2d 740 (8th Cir. 1968) Judge Gillespie made the following observations:
*312The facts of the Engebretson case are easily distinguishable from those in the instant case, where there is no evidence of a welcome return to the Anderson home or the establishment of any of the usual family relationship consistent with her becoming a usual member of the household. Ever since she was 13 in 1971, Jean has consistently lived with others than her mother. Her return in 1974 terminated her run away and take over by the welfare authorities. Her return to the home in 1976 was temporary and conditioned upon her leaving in a few weeks. Her return in April, 1977, was intended to be only temporary, and in fact, was with the understanding that she was to reside there only under certain conditions.
It strains one’s credibility to believe that Jean understood the Anderson home to be her “usual” residence. If it could be argued that it was her usual residence during April to June 5th, the facts of the case show clearly that such a residence ended on June 3rd, 1977. She left the home then, under an order of termination, and never returned prior to the accident. All of her actions upon her return to Minnesota raise a convincing inference that she, in obedience to such termination of residence, never intended to return to the home after June 3rd.
♦ * * * # *
I have duly considered the Federal case of State Farm Mutual Co. v. Borg, 396 F.2d 740 (1968). * * * I find no difficulty in distinguishing the Federal Court’s conclusion with the conclusions I have enunciated in the instant case. Jean did not live a lifetime with her mother; she had definitely severed the household “umbilical cord”; she did not enjoy the amenities of the home; she was not welcome at the home, and her physical presence in the home prior to June 3rd was conditional only and inconsistent with a “family unit” relationship; and she had physically left the home before June 9th, 1977.
Under the facts of this case clearly Ro-senberger did not qualify as a “resident” of her stepfather’s household and in my opinion Judge Gillespie was correct in holding that our decision in Fruchtman v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 274 Minn. 54, 142 N.W.2d 299 (1966) governs. There, in finding that the plaintiff was not covered because he was not a resident of his parents’ household, we noted that plaintiff
“had not been physically present in the home for more than a week or two on any one occasion for a period of approximately 2½ years prior to the accident * * *. [H]is visit at the family household was of a strictly transient nature. * * * [I]t is fair to infer that under the circumstances neither plaintiff nor his parents considered him a permanent part of the household but simply intended that he enjoy the status of a visitor.”
Id. at 57, 142 N.W.2d at 301. In the present case, as in Fruchtman, the relationship was that of a guest and host and none of the parties regarded Rosenberger’s presence in the home as anything more than an emergency measure to provide shelter while she found suitable quarters elsewhere.
I would reverse.