Court Opinion

ID: 9608854
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:18:49.524482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:22:06.763586
License: Public Domain

SPENCE, J.—I dissent.
The policy coverage was limited to “liability imposed . . . because of injury to or destruction of property, . . . caused by accident.” (Emphasis added.) The trial court found: “That it is not true that any of the defects in any of said doors or any of the expenses incurred or losses sustained by plaintiff was caused by accident.” In my opinion this was the only finding which the trial court could properly have made under the undisputed facts. There was no “sudden and unexpected” event or anything which happened “suddenly and unexpectedly” so as to bring the situation within any accepted meaning of the phrase “injury to or destruction of property, . . . caused by accident.” (Zuckerman v. Underwriters at Lloyd’s, 42 Cal.2d 460, 473 [267 P.2d 777]; Rock v. Travelers Ins. Co., 172 Cal. 462, 465 [156 P. 1029, L.R.A. 1916E 1196]; Richards v. Travelers Ins. Co., 89 Cal. 170, 175 [26 P. 762, 23 Am.St.Rep. 455].) Thus, the effect of the majority opinion is to convert a so-called public liability policy, limited to liability imposed for damage ‘ ‘ caused by accident, ’ ’ *568into an agreement to indemnify the insured against liability for the insured’s failure faithfully to perform its contractual obligations regardless of the showing of any ‘ ‘ accident. ’ ’
In Volf v. Ocean Accident & Guar. Corp., 50 Cal.2d 373 [325 P.2d 987], a somewhat similar policy was involved. This court found it unnecessary there to determine the scope of the insuring clause using the term “caused by accident,” as the facts clearly brought the situation within one of the exclusionary clauses of the policy. {Ibid, p. 375.) In my opinion, this court could have properly reached the same result in the Volf case by holding that the facts did not bring the situation within the plain provisions of the insuring clause. This court there distinguished Hauenstein v. Saint Paul-Mercury Indem. Co., 242 Minn. 354 [65 N.W.2d 122], but in the present case, the majority relies upon that case to support its position. I do not believe that the cited case was correctly decided, and therefore I would not follow it.
The majority opinion also cites and relies upon Ritchie v. Anchor Casualty Co., 135 Cal.App.2d 245 [286 P.2d 1000]. The policy there was quite similar, insuring against liability for damages “caused by accident.” The insured sold rancid peanut oil which was used by its customer in the manufacture of food products. The use of such oil by its customer “ruined all food products in which it was used, and damaged the machinery employed in the manufacture of same.” (P. 252.) The court there quoted the approved definition of accident as something “which happens suddenly and unexpectedly” (p. 253) and held that the liability of the insured was embraced within the terms of the insuring clause. Unlike the present case, the use of the rancid peanut oil there “suddenly and unexpectedly” caused damage to both the entire mass of the food product into which it was mixed and to the machinery used in the processing. Here, nothing happened “suddenly and unexpectedly” and there was no damage to the houses except for the fact that the doors themselves proved to be defective. It is therefore clear that the insured’s liability was not a liability for damage “caused by accident.”
I would affirm the judgment.
Shenk, J., and MeComb, J., concurred.