Court Opinion

ID: 9733730
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:15:53.700971+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:43.953395
License: Public Domain

COYNE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. By rewriting the parties’ contract without regard to either the language of the contract or the intent of the parties, the majority demonstrates once again the veracity of the adage that hard cases make bad law.
The following definitions contained in the homeowners’ policy issued by Great American Insurance Companies to Robert and Joanne Fournelle are pertinent to this inquiry:
Throughout this policy, “you” and “your” refer to the “named insured” shown in the Declarations and the spouse if a resident of the same household. “We”, “us” and “our” refer to the Company providing this insurance.
‡ jjc $ ‡ sfe *
3. “insured” means you and the following residents of your household:
a. your relatives;
b. any other person under the age of 21 who is in the care of any person named above.
*2964. “insured location” means:
a. the residence premises;
# * * * * *
Two persons, Robert Fournelle and Joanne Fournelle, are named as insureds in the Declarations of the Great American policy. According to the policy definitions, then, “you” and “your” refer to both Robert Fournelle and Joanne Fournelle, and because in this case “you” and “your” refer to two people who reside at different locations, the class of persons who fall within the policy definition of “insured” is doubled. First, “ ‘insured’ means you” — i.e., the two named insureds Robert Fournelle and Joanne Fournelle. Had there been only one named insured, the unnamed spouse would have ceased to be an “insured” as soon as Robert and Joanne took up separate residences. Had Joanne been the sole named insured, Robert, whose status as an insured would have depended on the fact that he was the spouse of the named insured who resided in the named insured’s residence, would have ceased to be an “insured” the moment he moved out of the family residence. On the other hand, had Robert been the sole named insured, then when Robert moved from the insured premises, Joanne would no longer be an insured even though she continued to reside there. As we observed in State Farm Fire and Casualty Co. v. McPhee, 336 N.W.2d 258, 261 (Minn.1983), the policy definition imposes no residence requirement on a named insured.
In addition to the named insureds, “insured means * * * the following residents of your household: a. your relatives.” When Robert and Joanne separated, Thomas and Joseph, the Fournelles’ minor sons, continued to live with their mother in the family home, which was insured by the homeowner’s policy. Consequently, the two boys were also “insureds” with respect to personal liability. In short, at the time Robert shot and killed his two sons and himself, Robert, Joanne and their two sons, Thomas and Joseph, were all insureds under the Great American policy.
When Joanne instituted an action for wrongful death against Robert’s estate, Great American denied that the claim was within the coverage afforded by the policy. The insurer based its denial in part on the following exclusion:
2. Coverage E — Personal Liability, does not apply to:
* # * * * *
f. bodily injury to you and any insured within the meaning of part a. or b. of Definition 3. “insured”.
Inasmuch as the two victims, Thomas and Joseph, were insureds, the clear and unambiguous policy language excludes from coverage claims arising out of their injury and death — and so the trial court and court of appeals concluded.
Joanne contends, however, that the sev-erability clause vitiates the exclusion:
2. Severability of Insurance. This insurance applies separately to each insured. This condition shall not increase our limit of liability for any one occurrence.
Certainly, the severability clause has long been understood to clarify the meaning of the term “the insured” when that term appears in a policy exclusion, and especially in the employee exclusion.1 Risjord and Austin, “Who is ‘The Insured’ ” Revisited, 28 Ins.CounsJ. 100, 101 (1961). Thus it was that 15 years ago this court held that an “employee exclusionary clause” does not preclude coverage for bodily injury to an employee of a named or additional insured if the injured person was not an employee of the insured seeking protection under the policy. Utica Mut. Ins. Co. v. Emmco Ins. Co., 309 Minn. 21, 35, 243 N.W.2d 134, 142 (1976).2 It is, however, one thing to say that when it appears in an exclusion the term “the insured” means only the person claiming coverage. Risjord and Austin, supra, at 100. It is quite something else to say that “the person claiming coverage” should be substituted *297for the term “any insured” in the exclusion for “bodily injury to you and any insured.” In apparent recognition that such an interpolation would render the exclusion meaningless, (the person claiming coverage has no liability for injury to himself or herself) Joanne does not attempt to make the substitution but instead urges that because Robert Fournelle’s estate alone seeks the protection of the policy, the exclusion should be “read” as if Robert were the sole named insured. Of course, the “reading” required to support Joanne’s proposed conclusion does not go to the exclusion, but rather to the definition of insured, which must then be “read” to exclude the Four-nelle sons, Thomas and Joseph, from the status of insured.
This court has, however, twice rejected the contention the policy divides into two separate policies or that policy definitions change whenever some insured claims coverage under the policy. North Star Mutual Insurance Co. v. Ziebarth, 386 N.W.2d 238 (Minn.1986), was a declaratory action in which the daughter of the deceased named insured claimed that she was an insured pursuant to the “definitions” section of her father’s homeowner’s policy:
If you die while insured under this policy, your protection passes to your legal representative or other person having proper, temporary custody of covered property.
Id. at 239 (emphasis in original). We rejected the argument, grounded on the sev-erability clause, that “you” and “your” referred only to the sole named insured and held that “you”, as defined in the policy,3 referred not only to the deceased named insured but also to his surviving spouse, who continued to reside in the covered premises. Therefore, because “you” referred to both the named insured and his spouse, coverage would pass to the legal representative or other custodian of covered property pursuant to the “if you die” clause only on the death of both those persons. See also State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Guccione, 171 Ill.App.3d 404, 406-07, 121 Ill.Dec. 537, 538-39, 525 N.E.2d 595, 596-97 (1988).
Had the court “read” the definitions section so that “you” and “your” referred only to the named insured under whose aegis the daughter was claiming coverage — the same kind of revision appellant would have us do here — the passage of coverage to the legal representative or other custodian of covered property would have been triggered by the death of the named insured. But the court simply looked to the plain language of the definition section in holding that the daughter was not entitled to the protection of the policy.
Earlier, in McPhee, 336 N.W.2d at 261, we held that an insured homeowner’s liability for the wrongful death of his estranged wife was excluded from coverage by operation of the exclusion for any bodily injury to an insured. As in the present case, both John and Linda McPhee were named insureds in their homeowner’s insurance policy. When the couple separated John remained in the insured premises; Linda and her two children moved into an apartment. About 10 months later John shot Linda.
John contended that Linda ceased to be an insured when she and John became estranged and moved to different quarters. Had Linda derived her status as an insured from residence in the household of her named insured spouse,4 then that argument would have had merit. But Linda was a named insured, and the policy did not im*298pose a residency requirement on a named insured. Hence, the plain language of the policy excluded from coverage liability for Linda’s death.
In other words, in McPhee the court declined to strip Linda of her insured status by creating separate policies for each named insured and then looking to the policy definitions as if the insured claiming coverage were the only insured named in the policy declarations so that another person could be an additional insured only through residence in the household of that named insured.5 “You” and “your” refer to both spouses who are named insureds and their separation and acquisition of separate residences does not cause either spouse to lose the status of insured. Neither does it cause “you” or “your” to become singular so as to deprive the children who live with one or the other spouse of their status as additional insureds. Had Thomas and Joseph been the perpetrators rather than the victims here, there can be no question that they would have been insureds entitled to the protection of their parents’ homeowner's policy. Had Robert been their victim rather than the perpetrator, there can be no question that claim for his injury or death would have been excluded. Nevertheless, the boys would have been entitled to the protection of the policy in the event of injury to someone else. The policy should not be misconstrued to deprive the named insureds’ children of their status as additional insureds in order to avoid the impact of a perfectly clear exclusion from coverage. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment entered by the trial court and affirmed by the court of appeals.
SIMONETT, Justice
(dissenting).
I join Justice COYNE’s dissent.
TOMLJANOVICH, Justice
(dissenting).
I concur in the dissent of Justice COYNE.

. Most automobile policies, for example, exclude from coverage liability for bodily injury to any employee of "the insured" arising out of and in the course of employment.

. The court also ruled that the holding should apply irrespective of the presence of a severability-of-interests clause. Id. at 33, 243 N.W.2d at 141.

. The definition of the words "you” and “your” in the Ziebarth policy reads as follows:
The words you and your refer to the person or persons named in the Declarations and your spouse if a resident of your household.

Id.

. The definitions section of the McPhee policy—
DEFINITIONS
Throughout this policy, "you” and “your" refer to the "named insured" shown in the Declarations and the spouse if a resident of the same household, and "we,” “us” and "our” refer to the Company indicated in the Declarations. In addition, certain words and phrases are defined as follows:
******
3. "insured” means you and the following residents of your household:
a. your relatives;
b. any other person under the age of 21 who is in the care of any person named above.
tracks almost verbatim that contained in the policy at issue here. Id.

. Although it is not apparent from the opinion, the McPhee policy contained a severability clause, and McPhee may not be distinguished on that ground.