Court Opinion

ID: 9507775
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 21:25:26.255274+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:23.619085
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE SHEA,
dissenting:
I join in the dissent of Justice Weber and I would reverse the judgment of the District Court. The majority opinion creates insurance coverage where there clearly is none — by the terms of the policy.
Insurance policies are a maze, and this appears to be a generally-accepted fact of life, and a fact that courts also must live with. However, once the maze is figured out, the question should be whether the essential policy provisions are ambiguous. If they are, I have no problem in construing the provisions against the insurer. This is the law and properly so. But if the language is clear and it happens to benefit the insurer, the insurer is just as clearly entitled to the benefit of that language when the courts are called on to decide the question. Here the language is clear and the language benefits the insurer.
When read in its entirety, conditioned upon the general condition limiting liability, it is clear that the damage or an injury leading to death, had to occur during the policy period. It did not and therefore there is no coverage.