Court Opinion

ID: 9704376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:33:22.730257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:01.381229
License: Public Domain

*651COLER, Justice
(dissenting).
The majority opinion acknowledges that none of the numerous cases cited by the parties “contains a similar factual situation to the case at bar” and with this statement I agree. The majority of the court has also, for the purpose of construction, properly adopted “the broader view of the ‘use’ clause” in an automobile policy, but in the application of that rule the majority has accomplished the opposite result by narrowly construing the clause. I agree with what was stated by the Wisconsin Court in Allstate Insurance Company v. Truck Insurance Exchange, 1974, 63 Wis.2d 148, 216 N.W.2d 205, wherein that court held that a “loading and unloading” provision in an insurance contract “would have to be considered an extension of the ‘use’ clause. Such a rationale is necessary lest the ‘loading and unloading’ be considered to mean nothing.”
The majority opinion does not extend, but rather limits, the “loading and unloading” coverage by requiring a causal connection between vehicle use and the loading and unloading being done.
I am convinced that the gun was being unloaded from the vehicle within the meaning of the policy. Neither Stammer v. Kitzmiller, 1937, 226 Wis. 348, 276 N.W. 629, nor State v. District Court of Second Judicial District, 1940, 110 Mont. 250, 100 P.2d 932, is controlling in the instant case for both courts agree that the process of unloading encompasses every act up to the point where the process is complete. Those two courts only disagreed as to when delivery was completed for the purpose of determining other insurers’ liability.
On the facts that appear in the record I would reverse the judgment on the basis that “unloading” includes the entire process of removal of anything within the motor vehicle to its destination. It should not matter that the unloading in this case was intended to be to another vehicle rather than a fixed place or destination, and nothing within the policy or plain meaning of the word “unloading” requires an unloading to be permanent as against temporary.