Court Opinion

ID: 9546740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:34:49.435022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:49.244906
License: Public Domain

HOWE, Associate Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. I cannot agree that for the purposes of the instant case, the exception *862in the insurance policy is so ambiguous that it cannot be applied here. That exception provides that Capitol will not pay charges “arising out of. an attempt at assault or felony.” Similarly worded exceptions are commonly found in health and accident policies and in double indemnity clauses in life insurance policies. While this particular language could have been written more artfully, for the purposes of the instant case it is clear to me that at a minimum, Capitol did not want to be liable for medical and hospital expenses arising out of the felonious conduct of its insured. It is illogical to suggest, as does the majority, that Capitol excluded only attempted felonies but not completed felonies or excluded only intentional felonies. Exceptions of this nature are employed because of the increased risk of injury to and death of an insured while he is engaging in felonious conduct. Felonious activity can be violent and dangerous and is commonly repelled by victims and police, resulting in injury or death to the perpetrator. Those risks are present whether the insured’s conduct is intentional or reckless, as here.
I also dissent from the majority’s conclusion that “Capitol has not established the required causal relationship between the insured’s injuries and a felony violation of law.” I agree with the majority that “in order to relieve the insurer of liability in such situations, the insured must have been actually engaged in a felony at the time and place of the injury.” That is exactly what happened in the instant case. Miller was injured while driving under heavy influence of alcohol on the wrong side of a divided interstate highway. He struck one vehicle and then continued on, striking the Heinz vehicle and killing Heinz. Nothing could be more clear than that Miller was actually engaged in a felony at the time and place of his injury. The fact that Heinz died five minutes after the accident is inconsequential. The elements of the crime to which Miller pleaded guilty included not only the death of Heinz, but also the conduct of Miller which precipitated the accident, namely, recklessly driving his automobile on the wrong side of the highway while heavily intoxicated. The majority focuses only on the death of Heinz as if that were the sole element of the crime of manslaughter. The death of Heinz would not have been manslaughter or any other crime unless it had been caused by Miller’s preceding reckless and drunken conduct. Since Miller’s conduct caused his own injuries and the death of Heinz, it is abundantly clear to me that Miller’s injuries did “arise out of a felony” or, simply stated, did arise out of Miller’s felonious conduct.
The majority relies entirely upon Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Gibson, 160 Colo. 462, 418 P.2d 50 (1966), where four members of the Colorado Supreme Court held that the accidental death of the insured did not “result from the commission of a felony by the insured.” In that case, the insured was driving an automobile under the heavy influence of alcohol. He collided with an automobile driven by Houck. Houck was injured, and the insured was killed. The majority reasoned that the injury to Houck was necessary to make the insured’s conduct felonious and since Houck’s injuries did not cause the insured’s death, the exception in the insured’s life insurance policy did not apply. One judge dissented. The fallacy of the court’s reasoning is obvious. It focused only on the last act necessary to constitute a felony, namely, the injury to Houck. It completely ignored the other elements of the crime leading up to Houck’s injury, which included the insured’s heavy intoxication and driving recklessly at a speed of approximately sixty miles per hour, striking the rear-end of Houck’s pickup truck which had stopped at an intersection for a traffic light.
Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Gibson represents an aberration in the cases interpreting felony exception clauses. My research indicates that it has been cited with approval by only an intermediate appellate court in New Jersey in Schwartz v. John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., 96 N.J.Super. 520, 531, 233 A.2d 416, 422 (1967). It is significant that the appellants in the instant case have cited only the above two Colorado and New Jersey cases in support of their contention that a causal relationship was lacking here. On the oth*863er hand, are many cases at Am.Jnr.2d Insurance §§ 580, 581 (1982) and in Annotation, Construction and Effect of Provisions in Life or Accident Insurance Policies Referring to “Assault, ” “Felony, ” “Fighting, ” etc., by Insured, 86 A.L.R.2d 443 (1962), which give a broader interpretation to felony exception clauses and support the view that the exception applies when the injury or death to the insured is causally connected to any aspect of the insured’s felonious conduct. Representative of these cases is Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Goodwin, 166 Va. 119, 123, 184 S.E. 208, 210 (1936), where the court recognized the necessity of some causal connection between the unlawful act and the death of the insured, but held after reviewing the cases on the subject that “when the facts constitute a continuous succession of events so linked together as to make a natural whole and it appears that the death was a natural probable consequence of the unlawful act, the causative connection exists which will defeat recovery” of double indemnity benefits. See also Powell v. New York Life Insurance Co., 120 So.2d 33, 86 A.L.R.2d 437 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1960), where it was held that an insured’s death resulted from the commission of an assault or felony. There, the insured was shot by his son, who responded to cries of help from his mother, who was being beaten by her husband, the insured.
The California Court of Appeals, in Romero v. Volunteer State Life Insurance Co., 10 Cal.App.3d 571, 88 Cal.Rptr. 820 (1970), expressly rejected the reasoning of the Colorado court in Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Gibson, preferring its earlier decision in Barker v. California-Western States Life Insurance Co., 252 Cal.App.2d 768, 61 Cal.Rptr. 595 (1967), cert. denied, 390 U.S. 922, 88 S.Ct. 855, 19 L.Ed.2d 982 (1968). It is important to note that in Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Gibson, the exception in the policy under consideration denied recovery “if death results directly or indirectly from ... (4) the commission by the Insured of an assault or felony.” 160 Colo. at 463-64, 418 P.2d at 51. The exception in the instant case is arguably broader since it denies recovery for expenses “arising out of” a felony. Certainly, Miller’s injuries did arise out of his felonious conduct which led to the death of Heinz. For additional cases supporting Capitol’s denial of benefits to Miller, see Kaminsky v. Home Life Insurance Co., 45 Misc.2d 819, 258 N.Y.S.2d 266 (N.Y.App. Term 1965); Waters v. National Life and Accident Insurance Co., 156 F.2d 470 (10th Cir.1946); McDaniel v. Country Life Insurance Co., 93 Ill.App.3d 834, 49 Ill.Dec. 260, 417 N.E.2d 1087 (1981); Mainer v. American Hospital and Life Insurance Co., 371 S.W.2d 717 (Tex.Civ.App.1963); and Barker v. California-Western States Life Insurance Co., 252 Cal.App.2d 768, 61 Cal.Rptr. 595 (1967), cert. denied, 390 U.S. 922, 88 S.Ct. 855, 19 L.Ed.2d 982 (1968).
The language of the exception in the policy here was “arising out of” a felony. As I have heretofore stated, it should be interpreted to mean “arising out of felonious conduct.” In that respect, it is similar to one of the ways in which murder in the first degree may be committed under Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-202(l)(d) (1978, Supp. 1988). There, first degree murder is defined as intentionally or knowingly causing the death of another person “while the actor was engaged in the commission of” certain enumerated felonies. We held in State v. Johnson, 740 P.2d 1264 (Utah 1987), that a res gestae analysis should be given to the statute so that the killing need not occur at the same instant as the felony, but that the killing and the felony must simply be one continuous interrelated occurrence. In that case, the killing actually preceded the felony, viz., rape of the victim’s wife. If a res gestae analysis is given to the policy exception in the instant case and the conduct of Miller is looked at as one continuous interrelated occurrence, it is of no significance that Miller’s injuries occurred five minutes prior to Heinz’s death. At the time Miller was injured, the felony was in progress. Only the final element, namely, the death of Heinz, had not yet occurred, but was only minutes away.