Court Opinion

ID: 9885908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 15:22:22.277702+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:59.915189
License: Public Domain

OWEN, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
*898The district court's disposition of Gloria Wells's tort claim was correct, and I therefore concur in affirming the district court's judgment in that regard. However, because Exclusion Four of the accidental-death policy bars coverage, the district court also correctly held that there was no breach of the insurance policy. I therefore respectfully dissent from the reversal of the district court's judgment as to the breach of contract claim.
The policy provides that there is coverage:
only when ... death results, directly and independently from all other causes, from an accidental bodily injury which was unintended, unexpected and unforeseen. The bodily injury must be evidenced by a visible contusion or wound.... [and] [t]he bodily injury must be the sole cause of ... death.
Exclusion Four provides that there is no coverage if "death is caused directly or indirectly by, results from, or there is contribution from ... bodily or mental infirmity, illness or disease." We should interpret this provision by adopting the policy's plain and ordinary meaning. Black's Law Dictionary defines "disease" as "[a] deviation from the healthy and normal functioning of the body" or "[a]ny disorder; any depraved condition."1 It defines "illness" as "[t]he quality, state, or condition of being sick; bodily or mental indisposition" or "[a] disease of the body or mind; disorder of health."2 West Nile encephalitis, a life-threatening inflammation of the brain,3 is plainly a "disease" or "illness" as those terms are commonly understood. Major health organizations agree. They too describe West Nile encephalitis as a disease or illness.4 Because the condition is an "illness" or "disease" under the policy, and because there is no dispute that West Nile encephalitis contributed to Melton Wells's death, Exclusion Four applies.
The majority opinion concludes that Exclusion Four applies only to an illness or diseased that the insured had at the time of the accident and not to an illness or disease that resulted from the accident. But Exclusion Four contains no such limitation. Exclusion Four applies when "death is caused directly or indirectly by, results from, or there is contribution from ... bodily or mental infirmity, illness or disease." Generally, "[w]ithout some indication to the contrary ... [words] are to be afforded their full and fair scope ... [and] are not to be arbitrarily limited."5 Exclusion Four provides no indication that it is limited to conditions that pre-date the accident. Without that contrary indication, we should afford those terms their full scope.
It is rare that "accidental bodily injury" will result in an "illness" or "disease," as is *899the case here, assuming that a bite from a mosquito carrying the West Nile virus constitutes "accidental bodily injury." The far more typical cases are where an accidental injury results in trauma to the body that ultimately leads, or contributes, to death. But the policy only covers what it says it covers. Courts should not ignore the plain language of the policy when atypical facts result in a death or injury that is not covered under the policy's express terms, however unfortunate the lack of coverage is for those who were accidentally injured.
Based on straightforward principles of construction, Minnesota Life has established that Exclusion Four bars coverage for Melton Wells's death. I respectfully dissent.

Black's Law Dictionary 567 (10th ed. 2014); see also Disease , Oxford English Dictionary 763 (2d ed. 1989) ("A condition of the body, or of some part or organ of the body, in which its functions are disturbed or deranged; a morbid physical condition; 'a departure from the state of health, especially when caused by structural change.' ").

Black's Law Dictionary 865 (10th ed. 2014); see also Illness , Oxford English Dictionary 656 (2d ed. 1989) ("Bad or unhealthy condition of the body ...; the condition of being ill ...; disease, ailment, sickness, malady.").

See West Nile Virus , Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (Aug. 2, 2017), https://www.cdc.gov/westnile/symptoms/index.html.

See id. (describing West Nile encephalitis as a "severe illness"); West Nile virus, Signs and symptoms , World Health Organization (Jul. 2011) http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs354/en/ (explaining that West Nile virus can cause "severe disease," including encephalitis ).

Antonin Scalia & Bryan Garner, Reading Law 101 (2012).