Court Opinion

ID: 9689153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:22:11.461963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:45.522315
License: Public Domain

SNELL, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I respectfully concur in part and dissent in part.
I agree with the result based on Simpson’s failure to comply with the policy provisions.
I do not agree that Simpson is covered by the policy language contained in the uninsured motorist coverage policy purchased fi*om USF & G by Simpson’s employer, Board of Waterworks Trustees of the City of Des Moines. The case should be decided on the language of the policy that describes what coverage has been bought and sold, not on an expandable concept that uninsured motorist coverage should include, as a public policy canopy, anyone engaged in using the vehicle. The idea of “use” coverage in a “zone” around the insured vehicle, completely ignores, nay, eviscerates the contractual language that defines “occupying” a covered vehicle to mean “in, upon, getting in, on, out or off.” An examination of dictionary definitions of these words shows that there is no ambiguity in them. Certainly, a person five or ten feet from the covered vehicle is not included in a dictionary description of the meaning of these words. The trial court indicates that Simpson was actually twenty feet from the truck when hit. We are not at liberty to find that Simpson was close enough to the vehicle, in “a zone of coverage,” to squeeze into the policy language that defines “occupying.” A beneficent intent to broadly sow uninsured motorist insurance is no substitute for the meaning of words.
The “occupying” word is included in section B(3) on ‘Who is an insured” and section F(2) on Definitions in the USF & G policy that states the terms for the “Iowa Uninsured and Underinsured Motorists Coverage” part of the policy. The idea that coverage is nevertheless provided because Simpson is “using” the vehicle is discovered by reaching outside the policy language that describes “occupying” in the policy that sets out the contract for “Iowa Uninsured and Underinsured Motorists Coverage.” The “using” language is found by backtracking to section II, the “Liability Coverage” section that sets out the general liability obligations for coverage by the insurer and lists “Who is an insured.” This section II is part of the Business Auto Coverage Form for liability coverage that is completely separate from the Uninsured Motorist Coverage part of the policy. There is no language in this insurance contract that fuses these sections together. Nor is there any support in logic or case law for the trumping of the “occupying” language in the Uninsured Motorist Coverage policy with the “using” language in the liability coverage section of the Business Auto Coverage Form, that is a completely separate policy coverage. This “using” language, vaulting into the Uninsured Motorist Coverage policy effectively negates the insurer’s right to legally contract and define the nature and limits of its obligations under the law.