Court Opinion

ID: 9694180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:27:28.758077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:57.042154
License: Public Domain

*469HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. No one claims the policy or any of its provisions were made known to the pilot, much less the insured, prior to the crash. The policy was not delivered until after the crash. In addition, there is no evidence that the provision upon which the insurer and the majority rely for suspending coverage and denying the insured’s claim was discussed with Hawk, or the insured prior to the crash. The majority’s holding, in the face of these facts, strikes me as diametrically contrary to our holding in C & J Fert., Inc. v. Allied Mut. Ins. Co., 227 N.W.2d 169 (Iowa 1975).
The majority points out that “. [njothing indicates suspicious conduct on the part of INA’s agent in attaching the endorsement upon issuing the policy prior to the crash. . . . ” But this is not the issue. The issue under C & J Fert. is what sort of protection the insured reasonably believed it purchased.
Prior to the crash the insured was informed by INA that its plane was covered by an as yet undelivered insurance policy. The issuance of this policy was in response to the insured’s application for insurance, in which Jim Hawk was certified as the sole pilot for the aircraft. Informing the insured, prior to the crash, that it was insured, without giving any notice of the suspension provision of the policy, induced an unqualified, yet reasonable belief by the insured that it was covered for the crash in the present case.
Since our opinion in C & J Fert. we have taken a practical view of the protection bargained for and sold in the issuance of an insurance policy. See for example Gibson v. Milwaukee Mut. Ins. Co., 265 N.W.2d 742, 745 (Iowa 1978) where we held an insured is afforded protection to the extent he can reasonably expect the terms of' the policy to mean. . . . ”
It is disappointing that the majority, after conceding the policy is a contract of adhesion, still finds the purchaser can be subjected, without notice and explanation, to all of the pitfalls of exclusions and exceptions of contract whenever they are inserted into a policy. It is especially inappropriate to renounce C & J Fert. or to limit its effect in this case. The majority attempts to distinguish C & J Fert. by stating the exclusion clause here, unlike the one in C & J Fert., is related to the insured’s conduct and the consequent risk. Again this is not the question. Under C & J Fert. the issue here is not how or whether to regulate either the insured’s or the pilot’s conduct. The issue is whether the insured corporation had a reasonable expectation of insurance.
I would affirm.
REYNOLDSON, C. J., and McGIVERIN, J., join in this dissent.