Court Opinion

ID: 9443571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:25:03.774065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:32.419195
License: Public Domain

POPE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I thought it proper to grant a rehearing in this case because at the time that.order was made I had some doubt as to whether our former opinion disclosed a correct apprehension of the Washington law. Now that the rehearing has been held I am satisfied that, as we previously indicated, what the Supreme Court of Washington said in Hamilton Trucking Service v. Automobile Ins. Co., 39 Wash.2d 688, 237 P.2d 781, represents the settled rule of that State with respect to the construction of insurance contracts. As quoted in our former opinion, the key language of that case was as follows at page 783 of 237 P.2d: “We have not adopted the lines of reasoning found in the cases cited by respondent in order to determine the intent of the parties, or what they may or must have contemplated when making an insurance contract with reference to the extent of the risk coverage when it was clear that the words were used in their ordinary sense or meaning, nor when the language used was plain and unambiguous. * * * We have taken the position in such matters that a rule of construction should not be permitted to have the effect to make a plain agreement ambiguous and then construe it in favor of the insured. * * * We cannot avoid feeling as we read the cases cited by respondent that those courts have created ambiguities where none existed and have then used rules of construction to determine the intent of the parties and what they must have contemplated, thus enlarging the risk coverage of the insurance policies under consideration.”
My difference with my brethren is that while the majority opinion recognizes this to be a correct statement of the rule which the Washington courts follow, yet I think they have found an ambiguity where none exists. The sentence — Condition 3 — quoted in the opinion is an ordinary compound sentence with two parts which are connected *767by the conjunction “and”. Plainly the second portion of this sentence sets up a duly to care for the damaged aircraft and minimize loss and damage “in the event of the Aircraft sustaining damage”. The opinion proceeds to read an ambiguity into the sentence by saying that the first part of it which precedes the conjunction “and” does no more in substance than state the same thing as in the last part. I think this violates the rules of construction for there is no fair reason why the sentence should state the same thing twice.
It seems to me that the portion of the. sentence which precedes the word “and” says in substance the same thing as was expressed in the language construed in Isaacson Iron Works v. Ocean Acc., etc. Corp., 191 Wash. 221, 70 P.2d 1026. The construction my brethren have put upon this portion of the sentence completely ignores the use of the word “avoid”.
The majority opinion finds fault with the sentence because it is not broken into two sentences, it being suggested that two quite distinct ideas cannot be set up in a single sentence. I think that this manifestly is a misapprehension for there is nothing more common in the proper use of English than to state two1 distinct ideas in a compound sentence connected by the word “and”. Thus in the 23d Psalm, taken from that version which is generally accepted as a model of the King’s English, appears the compound sentence: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the clays of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” There the first half of the sentence refers to the psalmist’s present life and the second half refers to the hereafter. Surely no ambiguity exists here despite the incorporation of two different ideas in the same sentence. The majority opinion places emphasis upon the lack of punctuation. Obviously in the biblical quotation just given the meaning would be no different if the colon had been omitted.
The rule with respect to the presence or absence of punctuation is as follows: “The words, not the punctuation, are the controlling guide in construing a contract. If the meaning of the words is clear the court will interpret a contract according to their meaning and without regard to the punctuation ' marks or the want of them. While punctuation may be resorted to in order to solve an ambiguity which it has not created, punctuation or the absence of punctuation will not of itself create ambiguity.” Anderson & K. Drilling Co. v. Bruhlmeyer, 134 Tex. 574, 136 S.W.2d 800, 803, 127 A.L.R. 1217, and cases cited. This is the rule in Washington. Skamania Boom Co. v. Youmans, 64 Wash. 94, 116 P. 645.
The reference in the opinion to the premium paid, with the conclusion that the insured thus “contemplated a broad measure of protection”, proceeds in a manner precisely contrary to the rule stated in the Hamilton Trucking case, supra, where the court expressly declined to construe a contract by inferring what the parties “may or must have contemplated”.
Since I think the language here used is not ambiguous the judgment should be as stated in our former opinion.