Court Opinion

ID: 9557641
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 16:53:48.08477+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:07.235119
License: Public Domain

STEVENS, Court of Appeals Judge
(specially concurring).
First let me point out that while the Court of Appeals opinion was rendered in a case assigned to Division One of this Court it was wholly decided by the Judges of Division Two of this Court. Not having personally participated in the Court of Appeals opinion, I have no hesitancy in sitting with the Supreme Court on this review.
To my mind the critical question is the adequacy of the record to establish whether the grandmother’s care of the minor child was a business activity or a home activity. I do not question that at the moment of the injury, the instrument which inflicted the injury was part of the business activities of the grandparents. In this aspect of the liability issue the grandmother was not an active participant. The business activity liability policy was issued by Globe Indemnity and Globe Indemnity fully performed its obligations under its policy. The grandmother’s participation in the child’s injury was her alleged negligence in failing to properly supervise the child. In my opinion the pleadings in the tort action and the issues framed in the garnishment here in question were broad enough to encompass this question. This was not expressly answered and we cannot *333return the case to the trial court for this purpose.
Had there been an express finding that the grandmother’s supervision of her grandson was a home activity, even though at the time of her inattention to the child she was answering a telephone call relative to the family business, and even coupled with the concurrence of business activity negligence, than I would be of the opinion . that Western Fire refused to defend at its' peril and should be held to pay under its homeowners policy.
The business activity insurer, Globe Indemnity, owed no duty to Western Fire to develop facts beneficial to Western Fire.
On the record under review, I concur.