Court Opinion

ID: 9662198
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:02:37.414381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:37.715231
License: Public Domain

KEITH, Justice
(concurring and dissenting) .
I concur in part one of the opinion of the majority that Miller had at least the implied consent of the owner to drive the pickup truck on the occasion in question. However, I have difficulty in following the rationale of the court on the coverage question.
Exclusion (c) of the policy in issue provided :
“This policy does not apply:

“(c) under coverages A and C, while the automobile is used for the towing of any trailer owned or hired by the insured and not covered by like insurance in the company; or while any trailer covered by this policy is used with any automobile owned or hired by the insured and not covered by like insurance in the company.”
Plaintiff sought to recover in this instance under coverages A and C of the policy and I note that while the trailer was owned by the insured, it was not mentioned in the policy and plaintiff made no effort to establish that it was “covered by like insurance in the company.”
The policy defined private passenger automobile in this manner :
“The term ‘private passenger automobile’ means a private passenger, station wagon or jeep type automobile.”
Coverage was afforded for “a trailer not described in this policy, if designed for use with a private passenger automobile.”
The question presented by this appeal is whether or not a “gooseneck” trailer, not described in the policy and which was not designed for use (and could not be used) with an ordinary private passenger automobile, was likewise within the coverage of the policy.
I do not find a detailed description of a gooseneck trailer in our record. The parties did agree that the “gooseneck trailer could not be attached to a normal, or ordinary, passenger car”; that such a trailer “can not be attached to any motor vehicle unless a special attachment is placed on such motor vehicle specifically designed to accommodate a gooseneck trailer”; and “[a] gooseneck trailer attachment is designed to attach to a pickup truck or other similar truck bed.”
I note also that there was no pleading of ambiguity on the part of the insured and no such contention is made on appeal. Instead, the insured, relying upon Hudmcm and Durrett cited in the majority opinion, claims coverage while pulling the goose-neck trailer. I find the reasoning of the insured, which has been adopted by the majority, lacking in persuasiveness.
Our Supreme Court has not yet passed directly upon the question of whether a pickup truck is a private passenger automobile. The intermediate court’s holding in Hudman was not reached by the Supreme Court when it reversed the judgment of the Court of Civil Appeals. [398 S.W.2d 110 (Tex.1965)]; and, the Supreme Court was not given a chance to pass upon the question in Durrett since there was no application for a writ of error.
I submit that only by a strained construction of the policy has the majority found *941coverage in this instance. Assuming that Hudman and Durrett have correctly determined that a pickup truck is a private passenger automobile, it does not follow that a gooseneck trailer which can only be attached to a truck — and which cannot be attached to a ordinary passenger automobile — is covered.
In plain and unmistakable language, the policy extended coverage to “a trailer . . if designed for use with a private passenger automobile.” Conversely, it did not cover a trailer designed for use with a truck. Only by circuitous reasoning can a contrary result be obtained.
Insurance policies must be construed just as other contracts. Republic National Life Insurance Co. v. Spillars, 368 S.W.2d 92, 94; 5 A.L.R.3d 957 (Tex.1963); and, we are reminded that courts cannot undertake to make new contracts for parties in disregard of the plain and unambiguous language used in the policy. Royal Indemnity Company v. Marshall, 388 S.W.2d 176, 181 (Tex.1965).
The holding of the majority must come as a distinct surprise to Reese Miller who thought all the time that he was driving a truck, not a private passenger car. We have called the truck towing a gooseneck trailer a private passenger car; but, as Justice Pope once said: “Putting a saddle on a duck does not make it a horse.” [Smith v. Morgan, 235 S.W.2d 938, 942 (Tex.Civ.App., San Antonio, 1950, error dism.)]. Or, as was said earlier, “Calling our granite capítol a kite will not make it fly. ‘There is no magic in mere words to change the real into the unreal.’ ” [San Antonio & A. P. Ry. Co. v. Blair, 108 Tex. 434, 196 S.W. 1153, 1157 (1917)]. I must, therefore, respectfully dissent from an unrealistic creation of coverage in this case.
Being of the opinion that there was no coverage under the policy sued upon, I would reverse the judgment of the trial court and render judgment that the plaintiff take nothing.