Court Opinion

ID: 9580089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:01:44.481797+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:01.487281
License: Public Domain

Legge, Justice
(dissenting).
Pursuant to the requirement of a city ordinance, the appellant, Canal Insurance Company, issued its policy of automobile liability insurance to Foster Matthews, the owner and operator of a taxicab. In her complaint the plaintiff, Martha Coletrain, alleges that she and her husband, Mack Coletrain, were carried by Matthews as passengers in his taxicab to their destination; that the taxicab stopped, and plaintiff’s husband got out first; and that while she was getting out her husband negligently and willfully slammed the door on her hand, causing injury for which she sues her *562husband and Canal Insurance Company for actual and punitive damages. She does not sue Matthews; she charges him with no negligence; she does not allege that the taxicab was in any way unsafe or defective.
The policy, incorporated by agreement as part of the complaint, provided that with respect to the insurance for bodily injury liability the word “insured” should include, in addition to the named insured, “his spouse, if a resident of the same household, and also * * * any person while using the automobile and any person or organization legally responsible for the use thereof, provided the actual use of the automobile is by the named insured or such spouse or with the permission of either.”
The single question before us is whether, under the facts alleged in the complaint, the plaintiff's husband was an “additional insured” for whose alleged negligent and willful act a cause of action exists in her favor against the defendant insurer.
The ordinance pursuant to which the insurance was furnished, which is therefore to be considered as part of the insurance contract, Bryant v. Blue Bird Cab Co., 202 S. C. 456, 25 S. E. (2d) 489; Dobson v. American Indemnity Co., 227 S. C. 307, 87 S. E. (2d) 869, and upon which alone must depend the right of the plaintiff here to join the insurance company as defendant, Code, 1952, Section 10-702, Watts v. Baker, 233 S. C. 446, 105 S. E. (2d) 605, required insurance for the protection of persons who might be injured by the “negligent operation” of the taxicab. Taken in connection with the ordinance, I do not think that the quoted clause of the insurance contract may reasonably be construed as evidencing intention on the part of the contracting parties that the insurer should be liable under the facts here alleged. There is no allegation that Matthews, the named insured, had entrusted the operation of the taxicab to plaintiff’s husband or had given him permission to use it otherwise than to ride in it as a fare-paying passenger. To *563predicate liability of the insurer under such a policy, through its “additional insured” provisions, upon negligence and willfullness of one of whose relationship to the named insured as appears from the allegations of the complaint here, is nothing more than that of a passenger in a public conveyance, is, in my opinion, to read into the insurance contract a meaning not warranted by either its language or the circumstances of its making.
Bolton v. North River Insurance Company, La. App., 102 So. (2d) 544, 546, was an action bj’’ an injured bystander against the automobile liability insurer. There the automobile was a private one, operated by and in the control of one Mable Alexander, the wife of the named insured, who was allegedly engaged in a community errand with the full knowledge and consent of the insured. The complaint alleged that while the plaintiff was standing beside the automobile in conversation with Mrs. Alexander and with her hand on the automobile, one Ray Don Bolton, a guest passenger in the back seat, negligently slammed the rear door on plaintiff’s hand. Plaintiff based her claim, under the “additional insured” clause, not only upon the alleged negligence of Ray Don Bolton, but also upon alleged negligence of Mable Alexander “in failing to exercise the proper control over her guest passenger, which resulting (resulted?) in the latter’s negligence.” Demurrer to the complaint was upon the ground that its allegations affirmatively established contributory negligence of the plaintiff. It appears to have been taken for granted that the act of the guest passenger was “with the permission of the insured”, the court’s discussion (as quoted in the majority opinion in the instant case) being directed to whether the act of slamming the door constituted the "using” of the automobile within the meaning of the “additional insured” clause. And prior to that discussion the court, disposing of the only issue raised by the demurrer, said: “The allegations of fact, supra, set forth in plaintiff’s petition do not exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than that the proximate cause of the accident was the negli*564gence of the plaintiff herein. * * *. The negligence of plaintiff may have been, so to speak, passive, whereas the sole cause of the accident could have been Don Bolton’s gross carelessness. Furthermore, the plaintiff also alleges the named insured was negligent, which contributed to the accident, by failing to exercise the proper control over a guest passenger. (Actually, the complaint as quoted in the report of the case charged that negligence not to the named insured, but to his wife.) Only by a trial and full development of the facts can the negligence charged against the passenger and the operator of the automobile be eliminated as the proximate cause of [the] plaintiff’s injury and the establishment (sic) of plaintiff’s contributory negligence as the sole proximate cause.” (Parentheses and italics added.)
Bolton v. North River Insurance Company, supra, as reported, does not disclose whether the guest passenger, Ray Don Bolton, was a child, or for what reason Mrs. Alexander was under legal duty to control him. But it is interesting to note that the plaintiff in that case, less ready than either the defendant or the court to assume that his negligent act was with the permission of the named insured, charged the latter’s wife, obviously an “additional insured”, with negligence in failing to properly control him.
In Fidelity and Casualty Company of New York v. Lott, 5 Cir., 273 F. (2d) 500, no “additional insured” was involved. The negligent act alleged was that of the named insured, and the only issue was whether the accident resulting from that act arose out of the insured’s “use” of the automobile.
Consent by the owner of a vehicle that it shall be operated or used by another necessarily implies that the owner knows who that person is and is willing to entrust the operation or use of the vehicle to him. And such consent should be considered as limited to the purpose for which it was given. Rakestraw v. Allstate Insurance Co., S. C., 119 S. E. (2d) 746; Eagle Fire Company of New York v. Mullins, S. C., 120 S. E. (2d) 1. In accordance with that rule, the right *565of such other person to use the vehicle so in his charge, being commensurate with the purpose for which permission has been given him to use it, is not necessarily limited to the driving of the vehicle. But I am unable to agree that permission to open and close the doors of a public taxicab must, as a matter of law and without allegation, be presumed to have been given by the owner of the taxicab to every passenger that may be carried in it.
The majority opinion concludes with the suggestion that upon the trial of the case the evidence may show that the named insured not only permitted, but expected or required, that the doors of the taxicab be opened and closed by the passengers. But that is a far cry from the issue now before us. The case here concerns a demurrer to the complaint.
I would reverse the order appealed from.
Oxner, J., concurs.