Court Opinion

ID: 9534824
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:42:57.415675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:32:43.672151
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice,
concurring in result:
The majority would answer the first three certified questions by adopting the “chain of events” test as discussed in Okla. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Mouse, 268 P.2d 886 (Okla.1954). I view that test as too broad, and I would define the appropriate standard to be the “causal connection” test, as discussed in my concurring in part/dissenting in part opinion in Willard v. Kelley, — P.2d - (Okla.1990). Instead of holding that an injury “arises out of the use” of a vehicle any time a vehicle is the dangerous instrument that starts the chain of events which leads to the injury, I would simply require that there be a causal connection between the inherent use of the vehicle and the injury.
*697The first certified question asks whether the murders of Sanders and Houghton by being burned to death in the trunk of the automobile “arise out of the ... use of a motor vehicle” as contemplated by 36 O.S. 1981 § 3636. I would answer that question in the negative. As I urged in Willard, in order to fall within Section 3636, the injury must be causally connected to the inherent use of the vehicle. See annotation, 15 ALR4th 10 (1982). The vehicle must be more that the mere situs of the accident. Criterion Ins. Co. v. Velthouse, 751 P.2d 1, 3 (Alaska 1986). While the vehicle does not have to be the proximate cause, in the strict legal sense, the injury must at least relate to the inherent use of the vehicle. Id.
Rather than rely on “acts of independent significance” to sever the chain of events as the majority does, I would simply hold that as a matter of law the murders were not causally connected to the inherent use of the vehicle. While both rationales reach the same conclusion, the latter more narrowly defines the applicable test. This construction would allow for consideration of the contracting parties intent, while recognizing that a link between the vehicle and the injury must exist. Sciascia v. Am. Ins. Co., 183 N.J.Super. 352, 443 A.2d 1118, 1122 (1982).
Here, the felonious deeds of Hain and Lambert accomplished the murders. The deaths did not arise out of the inherent use of the vehicle. Automobiles are for locomotion, not for imprisonment nor criminal incineration. Thus, while I agree that the U.M. carrier cannot be held liable, I do so for the reason that there is no causal connection between these tragic deaths and the inherent use of the vehicle.
As for the remaining questions, the view asserted here as to the first question makes it unnecessary to address them. It is immaterial whether there was an act of “independent significance,” or whether the perpetrators of the crime were considered “operators” of the vehicle. Under any answers to those questions the insurer is simply not liable under the uninsured motorist provision, and that is because the deaths did not arise out of the inherent use of the vehicle.
I am authorized to state that Justice LAVENDER and Justice SIMMS join in these views.