Court Opinion

ID: 9614903
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:29:34.870813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:19:12.485844
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Chief Justice
(dissent-⅛).
I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that Northern Corporation was not an omnibus insured under the policy issued by United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co. to Robert Cooper. Whether or not Northern was a “user” of the vehicles must be determined by ascertaining whether Northern exercised some form of supervisory control over the trucks during the period in question. In my view, the superior court erred when it concluded that the record did not warrant a holding that Northern exercised supervisory control over the rock-hauling operation which was attempted with Cooper’s trucks.
Under my analysis of the evidence, the record demonstrates that Northern exercised a sufficient degree of control to bring it within the omnibus coverage of Cooper’s policy. In reaching this conclusion, I rely on essentially the same facts to which the majority has alluded. Briefly, these facts are: Approximately three weeks before the accidents, Northern bladed a roadway from 50 to 60 feet in width across the ice in part to permit greater freezing. Several days prior to the accidents, Cooper and Bow-dish, vice-president of Northern, tested the ice by loading a truck with progressively heavier loads and backing it onto the ice. On the morning in question, Bowdish and Cooper discussed whether the ice was safe for hauling. Shortly after this conversation took place, Bowdish gave an order to Cooper to commence the haul.
Bowdish then personally followed Cooper’s initial haul truck across the ice, communicating by radio with one of his employees who was detaining Cooper’s other trucks while awaiting word from Bowdish. After the first of Cooper’s trucks successfully traversed the ice to the dam site, Bowdish radioed his employee that Cooper’s other trucks could commence hauling.1 At various times Bowdish patrolled the roadway, as well as directing the drivers as to where they should dump the rock.
During the course of the haul, one of the drivers informed Bowdish that on crossing the ice he had noticed water coming through a crack in the ice.2 This same driver later observed Bowdish checking the area where water was coming through the cracked ice. Subsequently, Bowdish told this driver that the arqa was “all right”.
From these facts I would hold that Northern directly supervised the hauling operation. More particularly, I am compelled, on the record in this case, to the conclusion that Northern exercised a sufficient degree of control to come within the reach of the omnibus insured clause. For it was Northern which ordered the trucks to proceed and also determined before and during the haul operation whether or not the ice was safe for truck traffic. Unlike the majority, I find these facts require a holding that Northern was a user of the vehicles under the criteria of Southern California Petroleum Corp. v. Royal Indemnity Co., 70 N.M. 24, 369 P.2d 407, 410 (1962). There the court articulated the appropriate test in the following manner:
The decisions recognize use as going beyond actual mechanical operation of *437the vehicle and “as encompassing the broader concept of employing or putting the vehicle to one’s service by an act which assumes at any time — with the consent of the owner or his agent — the supervisory control or guidance of its movements.” (quoting from Woodrich Construction Co. v. Indemnity Ins. Co. of North America, 252 Minn. 86, 89 N.W.2d 412, 418 (1958))
Further, I think it inaccurate to imply that a holding to the effect that Northern is an omnibus insured would permit general contractors to look to the vehicle insurance policies of others for all job-site vehicular accidents. In the instant case, Northern made direct supervisory decisions in regard to precisely the area where the accidents occurred.
Since I would hold that Northern is covered by Cooper’s policy, I would also hold that the accidents come within Northern’s automobile liability coverage rather than the general liability coverage of the policies which Continental Insurance issued to Northern.

. The record shows that each driver determined his own speed and proximity to the proceeding trucks.

. The crack was located approximately where the two trucks later broke through the ice.