Court Opinion

ID: 9534782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:42:44.9621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:32:35.524777
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The question is whether summary judgment for plaintiffs was proper. The trial court granted summary judgment, holding that the plaintiffs were entitled to insurance coverage both under the uninsured motorist and medical payment provisions. As to the medical payments coverage I can concur with the majority. As to the uninsured motorist coverage the majority holds that whether or not the shooting was accidental, from the policeman’s vantage point, is a material fact in dispute. As I view it the insured is not entitled to recovery unless he can show that the injury was accidental and that the injury arose out of the use of an uninsured vehicle. I must respectfully dissent because I believe as a matter of law that the injury did not arise out of the use of the vehicle. The question of whether the injury was “accidental” is purely academic, and its resolution is not necessary to the correct disposition of this ease.
Prudential urges that uninsured motorist coverage should be denied and summary judgment should be granted in its favor because, as a matter of law, the shooting of Willard did not arise out of the use of the vehicle. Generally, when addressing the question of “use,” courts apply the “causal connection” test. See annotation, 15 ALR4th 10 (1982). A causal connection does not require proximate cause in the strict legal sense, nor does it require an inquiry into the intent of either party at the time of the accident. Rather, it requires that the “vehicle be more than the mere situs of the accident and that the use of the vehicle relate to its inherent use as a motor vehicle.” Criterion Ins. Co. v. Velthouse, 751 P.2d 1, 3 (Alaska 1986). This term has also been defined as mandating that the accident arise out of the inherent purpose of the vehicle. Tomlin v. State Farm Mutual Auto. Liab. Ins. Co., 95 Wis.2d 215, 290 N.W.2d 285, 290 (1980); Employers Casualty Co. v. Azar, 28 Colo.App. 566, 479 P.2d 979, 980 (1970). In the absence of effects caused by the movement of a vehicle, a vehicle is inherently no different than any other object or location, and it becomes merely the situs of the injuries, bearing no causal relationship to its nature as a vehicle. Reynolds v. Allstate Ins. Co., 400 So.2d 496, 497 (Fla.App.1981).
When making the determination of whether an injury arose out of the use of a vehicle, it is also important to consider whether the parties intended to contract against the particular incident. For example, in Sciascia v. Am. Ins. Co., 443 A.2d 1118, 1122 (N.J.1982), the court held that the firing of a gun from a moving vehicle was not a “natural and probable incident or consequence of the use of an automobile by an uninsured motorist.” Further, “it was not a risk against which the insurer and the insured might reasonably expect that protection would be afforded under a policy providing uninsured motorist coverage.” See also Ohio Casualty Group of Ins. Cos. v. Balearic, 355 Pa.Super. 345, 513 A.2d 462, 465 (1986); Gen. Accident Fire & Life Assurance Corp. v. Appleton, 355 So.2d 1261, 1263 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1978). Courts *1136have traditionally refused to enlarge coverage provided by the insurance contract without regard to the intent of the parties when entering the contract. Dairyland Ins. Co. v. Esterling, 205 Neb. 750, 290 N.W.2d 209, 213 (1980); Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Bruecks, 179 Neb. 642, 139 N.W.2d 821, 826 (1966).
When considering these principles together with the facts of the current case, I must agree with Prudential that such an accident was not covered by the terms of the policy. The cause of the injury was the gun, not the vehicle. The only connection between either automobile and the shooting was that the automobiles transported the respective parties to the location where the shooting occurred. Gilbertson v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins., 845 F.2d 245 (10th Cir.1988), is illustrative of this point. There, the insured loaned her car to a friend, York. York, after getting drunk, drove to an overpass on a highway and dropped a fifty-one pound boulder onto a car below, killing one person and injuring two others. Holding that the incident was not covered by the uninsured motorist policy, the court stated as follows:
The real question in this case is one of causation. The court feels that York’s exiting the ear, removing the rock from the car, carrying the rock to the ledge and then allowing it for fall, taken together, constituted an act of independent significance which broke the causal link between the use of the car and the Gil-bertsons’ injuries. Neither the car’s locomotion nor any of its mechanical functions was involved in either fork’s dropping the rock nor the rock’s hitting the Gilbertson vehicle.
Plaintiffs, in urging that Willard’s wounds were covered by the uninsured motorist policy, cite Southeastern Fidelity Ins. Co. v. Stevens, 142 Ga.App. 562, 236 S.E.2d 550 (1977) and Valdes v. Smalley, 303 So.2d 342 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1974). In Stevens, the insured’s son was killed when a gun, which was being carried in the vehicle, discharged immediately after the insured pulled off a smooth road on to a bumpy, rutted road. The court held that the discharge of the gun was directly related to the inherent use of the vehicle, because the driving of the vehicle most likely caused the gun to discharge. In Valdes a mug was thrown from a moving vehicle, resulting in the death of a teenage boy. The court ruled that the throwing of the mug and the high speed of the vehicle were concurrent causes of the accident because the high speed of the vehicle added to the velocity of the mug.
Unlike these cases wherein the use of the vehicle actually concurred in causing the injury, the vehicle in the present case was merely the location of the shooting. The accident did not arise out the “inherent purpose” of the vehicle, nor did either vehicle contribute or combine with any other force to cause Willard’s injury. The gun and bullets were the sole cause of his injury. Like the case of Gen. Accidental Fire & Life Assurance Cory. v. Appleton, supra, wherein the insured was attacked by three men while riding in their vehicle, the injury was not caused by the automobile but by the criminal acts of others.
The majority, as an example, states that if instead of firing a gun, Kelley “had thrown a large object out of the car and onto the path of Willard’s vehicle causing him to crash, there would be little doubt that whatever had been thrown from the car facilitated a getaway in the car and may be deemed to have arisen out of the car's use as a means to accomplish the desired escape.” For two reasons, I believe that this example is not applicable to the present case. First, in the majority’s example, the velocity of the vehicle would have contributed directly to the injury sustained. As in Valdes, the speed of the vehicle may be considered a cause concurrent with the throwing of an object. Here the gun and bullets were the sole cause of Willard’s injury; the vehicle did not cause or contribute to his injury. Secondly, the majority example points out that the vehicle might have contributed to the escape. However, that is not the focus when determining whether a causal connection exists. The nexus must exist between the plaintiffs injury and tortfeasor’s vehicle, not *1137between the vehicle and the tortfeasor’s escape.
Similar results have been reached by many other states who have confronted this problem. Ohio Casualty Group of Ins. Cos. v. Balearic, 355 Pa.Super. 345, 513 A.2d 462 (1986) (automobile liability insurance did not cover a shooting which occurred in an automobile because the accident did not arise out of the use of the vehicle); Rustin v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 254 Ga. 494, 330 S.E.2d 356 (1985) (automobile liability policy did not cover a shooting death which occurred after an automobile accident because the injury did not arise out of the use of the vehicle); State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Smith, 107 Idaho 674, 691 P.2d 1289 (Ct.App.1984) (automobile liability policy did not cover accidental shooting which occurred in vehicle because the accident did not arise out of the use of the vehicle); Union Ins. Co. v. Connelly, 694 P.2d 354 (Colo.Ct.App.1984) (automobile liability policy did not cover accidental shooting which occurred when a gun was unloaded from the vehicle because the injury did not arise out of the use of the vehicle); Sciascia v. Am. Ins. Co., 183 N.J.Super. 352, 443 A.2d 1118 (1982) (uninsured motorist policy did not cover deliberate shooting perpetrated by a moving vehicle because it did not arise out of the use of the automobile); Love v. Farmers Ins. Group, 121 Ariz. 71, 588 P.2d 364 (Ct.App.1978) (automobile liability policy held not to cover the assault and murder of insured who was abducted in his vehicle and driven to a deserted area where he was killed); Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Knight, 34 N.C.App. 96, 237 S.E.2d 341 (1977) (automobile liability policy did not cover an intentional shooting perpetrated by a person in a moving vehicle because it did not arise out of the use of the vehicle); Employers Casualty Co. v. Azar, 28 Colo. App. 566, 479 P.2d 979 (1970) (automobile liability policy did not cover accidental shooting because the incident did not arise out of the use of the vehicle); Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Bruecks, 179 Neb. 642, 139 N.W.2d 821 (1966) (automobile liability policy did not cover accidental shooting because the injury did not arise out of use of the vehicle); Culp v. Northwestern Pac. Indem. Co., 365 F.2d 474 (10th Cir.1966) (automobile liability policy did not cover injuries caused by a fight between two men who were unloading a truck at the time of the incident).
The Wisconsin Supreme Court faced an analogous situation in Tomlin, 290 N.W.2d at 285. In Tomlin, a police officer stopped a young man for a traffic violation. After asking the man to exit his vehicle, the officer noticed several beer cans in the floorboard and bent to examine them. The young man then stabbed the officer seven times. When considering whether this injury arose out of the use of the vehicle, the court resolved that, as a matter of law, the vehicle’s connection with the injury was not sufficient to bring it within the terms of the policy. Thus, the incident was not covered.
The majority remands to the trial court for a determination of whether the injury was an “accident” within the meaning of the policy. Only if the injury occurred in the course of “use” of the vehicle as legally defined here would I then be concerned with whether it was accidental or otherwise; it is thus of no consequence here. Vanguard Ins. Co. v. Cantrell, 18 Ariz. App. 486, 503 P.2d 962 (1973) is a case correctly identifying the principles governing both “use” and “intent.” There, the insured brought suit against the insurer, alleging that his injuries arose out of the use of a vehicle. The insured was shot by a fleeing felon during a robbery. The perpetrator drove up to the drive-in window and ordered the insured to give him all the money in the store. After the insured complied, the perpetrator started to drive off and fired a shot over his shoulder. He testified that he did not intend to harm anyone, but only meant to frighten the insured when he fired the gun. The court found that the injury did not arise out of the use of the vehicle:
From the standpoint of causation, this injury could have occurred in the woods, in a hunting lodge, or in a house. That the situs of the accident was in fact within a motor vehicle and the fact that both the tort-feasor and the injured party were ‘using the car’ at the time does not *1138make the injury one ‘arising out of the ... use’ of the vehicle. Nor did the injury result from any incident of ‘ownership’ of the vehicle. (Citation omitted)
The court also recognized that the question of intent was not relevant to the determination of “use,” but was only a consideration with regard to the issue of “accident.” The court reasoned that because the act was unintentional from the standpoint of the insured, it was an “accident” within the terms of the policy. See Celina Mut. Ins. Co. v. Saylor, 35 Ohio Misc. 81, 301 N.E.2d 721 (1973). But the insured in Vanguard lost his claim under his automobile policy because his injury did not arise out of use of the vehicle.
The proper focus is whether the shooting of Willard was causally connected to the use of an uninsured motor vehicle. I must agree with the reasoning used by a majority of our sister jurisdictions, which hold that as a matter of law gunshot wounds are not normally causally related to the use of the automobile, even if the vehicle was used in transportation to the location where the shooting occurred. No material facts as to use of the vehicle are here in dispute, and summary judgment in favor of Prudential is proper.
I am authorized to state that Justice LAVENDER joins in these views and that Justice SIMMS joins in part.