Court Opinion

ID: 9884497
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:59:41.075634+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:39.021362
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Davis, dissenting: I dissent with the views of the majority relative to the construction of this insurance contract. The opinion finds the terms of the policy unambiguous and purports to give effect to the intention of the parties in accordance with the clear expression of the agreement. In so doing, it is my belief that the majority have placed a construction on the contract dependent upon the alleged circumstance that the policy was obtained to satisfy the requirement of a showing of financial responsibility after an accident resulting in an unsatisfied judgment, a matter dehors the instrument. The effect of this construction of the policy is to relieve the insurer of liability to victims of a first accident in connection with non-relative-household permissive use of the motor vehicle of the assured even though condition 8 of the policy incorporated the omnibus clause of section 42 — 11 of the Motor Vehicle Act. Ill. Rev. Stat. 1947, chap. 95 par. 58k. The problem presented is that of ascertaining the intention of the parties from the policy. The rules for the construction and interpretation of insurance contracts are the same as those applicable to other contracts. (Capps v. National Union Fire Ins. Co. 318 Ill. 350; Old Colony Life Ins. Co. v. Hickman, 315 Ill. 304.) “The circumstances which courts may consider in determining the construction of a contract are those arising in the contract itself — that is, before a court may look at the surrounding circumstances there must be ambiguity in the language of the instrument. Unless such be found in the language of the contract the meaning must be determined from the words used and from no other source.” Englestein v. Mintz, 345 Ill. 48; Jones v. Sacramento Avenue M. E. Church, 198 Ill. 626. The majority relied on the case of Henderson v. Transcontinental Mutual Ins. Co. 227 F.2d 106. I cannot agree with the reasoning of the Henderson case or the majority statement that the “contractual intention of the parties seems clear” and that the contract is free from ambiguity. If this is true, then the majority are in the anomalous position of deciding this case on the basis of circumstances outside the policy, even though they consider its terms to be certain. While the rider attached to the policy purports to limit the original comprehensive omnibus clause, section 8 of the policy provides that such insurance shall comply with the Financial Responsibility Act of any State or Province which shall be applicable. Section 42 — 11 of the Motor Vehicle Act requires that a motor vehicle liability policy as therein defined “shall insure the person named therein and any other person using or responsible for the use of said motor vehicle or vehicles with the express or implied permission of said insured.” (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1947, chap. 95^2, par. 58k.) These provisions are inconsistent, conflicting and ambiguous, and should be strictly construed against the insurer and to afford the most protection to the insured. (Mosby v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York, 405 Ill. 599; Moscov v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York, 387 Ill. 378.) Application of these recognized principles of construction of insurance contracts leads to the conclusion that by the incorporation of the omnibus clause of the financial responsibility law in the policy, the insurance afforded was extended to any person using the motor vehicle with the permission of the assured. It is the majority opinion which reads the omnibus provisions of the financial responsibility law into the contract, if, and only if, the policy is used as proof of financial responsibility after an accident has occurred resulting in an unsatisfied judgment. The policy does not so provide. Section 23 of the policy conditions provides that the terms of the policy which are in conflict with the statutes of the State wherein the policy is issued are thereby amended to conform to such statutes. Thus any conflicts of the terms of the policy, or of any rider, with the omnibus statutory provisions are specifically resolved in favor of the statute. The majority concede, “It is to be noted, however, that the Illinois financial responsibility law specifically requires the inclusion of an omnibus clause in insurance policies issued thereunder.” The rationale of the majority, whereby the omnibus provision flashes alternately inoperative, then operative, as motivated by facts dehors the contract, is most difficult of comprehension; and the magnitude of this difficulty is surpassed only by the improbability that the contracting parties contemplated or intended such result. I find nothing in the words, “insurance afforded by this policy,” which excludes omnibus coverage for the operator of this particular vehicle and requires the application of the restrictive endorsement. There is the added consideration that under section 42 — 6, (par. 58f) of the law, proof of financial responsibility may be voluntarily made by or on behalf of any person prior to the offense or accident under which any conviction, judgment or order arises. In such case the privilege of operating any motor vehicle shall not be suspended if such proof, at the time of such conviction, judgment or order is valid and sufficient under the law. Such prior proof of financial responsibility may be made by a proper policy or policies of insurance, bond, or deposit as provided in section 42 — 5 (par. s8e). It is therefore untrue that the only policies of insurance contemplated by the law pertaining to financial responsibility are those which are given after an accident has resulted in an unsatisfied judgment. The problem here presented is one of construction and interpretation of the policy. The majority have construed the provisions of the financial responsibility law rather than those of the policy, and in so doing have made a new contract under the guise of construing the old. I submit that the majority, sustained by respectable authority in other jurisdictions, have sought to ascertain the intention of the legislature in passing the financial responsibility law, rather than that of the the parties to this contract. I do not believe that the insured intended to purchase, or the policy provides for, insurance coverage under the omnibus clause for the purpose of furnishing proof of financial responsibility for the future and not the present. “The law undertakes to enforce reasonable expectations which arise out of conduct, relations and situations.” (Cardozo’s Growth of the Law, page 102.) Can it be said that the opinion of the majority enforces a reasonable expectation determined from the provisions of the policy? Mr. Justice Bristow concurs in the foregoing dissenting opinion.