Court Opinion

ID: 9663156
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:29:31.778949+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:59.039320
License: Public Domain

YETKA, Justice
(dissenting).
In this case, there were three different insurance coverages: one was a farm liability coverage — coverage A; the second was personal liability coverage — coverage B; the third was medical coverage — coverage C. The court of appeals held that there was no coverage under either A or B, but allowed medical payments under C.
An exclusion applicable to the personal liability coverage — coverage B — bars coverage if the insured is residing on premises not described in the policy itself — the situation that exists here. Therefore, the lower court’s decision that coverage B does not cover the insured is understandable.
However, it is contended that the same exclusion also excludes coverage under coverage A — the farm liability coverage. The policy itself describes coverage A only as farm liability coverage with no further ex*796planation of its terms. The ¡exclusion reads that all coverages under the policy do not apply to any bodily injury or property damages “arising out of the ownership, use or control by or rental to any insured of any premises, other than the insured premises.”
Clearly, this coverage would insure against an innocent third party when that party was injured in the course of farm operations. Before the exclusion can operate to bar insurance coverage for such an injury, there must be some causal connection between the premises where the accident happened and the accident itself. Here, the injury, although it occurred on non-described insured premises, had no relationship to those premises. The injury occurred when Jeffrey Arndt was assisting Ronald Kieffer, the insured, in manually unloading frozen cornstalks from a farm implement called a chopper box. The stalks of the corn were then shredded and were to be used as bedding in the barn located on the premises where Ronald Kief-fer resided. Arndt was caught in the machine’s beaters and severely injured. The shredder could have been located anywhere in the country. It was a piece of machinery and the negligence of operating that machinery caused that injury and not the premises themselves.
In contrast, if the plaintiff had been injured in the barn by falling through the floor, obviously, there would be no recovery under the policy. Such an injury would be associated with the premises where Kieffer was living, premises not described in the initial policy itself. As the majority opinion notes, the Kieffers’ farm liability coverage is not limited solely to injuries occurring on the described premises. Defense counsel admitted in open court that, if the plaintiff had been injured on a public highway or in the ditch while operating the Kieffers’ farm machinery, there would have been coverage under the farm liability portion of the policy. His argument is that, in such a case, there would be no association between the injury and the non-insured property. The same argument could be made here because there was no association between the non-insured property or any buildings on that property and the injury itself. The injury occurred because of the negligent use of the machinery.
This fact sufficiently distinguishes this case from St. Paul Fire and Marine Ins. Co. v. Ins. Co. of North America, 501 F.Supp. 136 (W.D.Va.1980), cited by the majority opinion in support of its holding. In St. Paul Fire, the negligent fire from a building on non-described property caused the loss. In such a case, the connection between the injury and the premises, which are usually considered to include both property and buildings, is clear. Here, the only cited connection between the farm machinery and the premises is that the shredded stalks produced might be useful in a barn. Such a connection is too attenuated a basis on which to exclude coverage.
Accordingly, I would reverse the court of appeals and find coverage under coverage A.