Auto-Owners Ins. Co. v. Pridgen
| Decision Date | 08 December 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 76--312,AUTO-OWNERS,76--312 |
| Citation | 339 So.2d 1164 |
| Parties | INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. Garland H. PRIDGEN, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Edward E. Fessenden, Jr., of Lane, Massey, Trohn, Clarke, Bertrand & Smith, Lakeland, for appellant.
Marvin B. Woods, Lakeland, and Jonnie M. Hutchinson, Lake Alfred, for appellee.
Defendant/appellant Auto-Owners Insurance Company takes this interlocutory appeal from a summary judgment determining liability. We affirm.
Plaintiff/appellee Pridgen owned a 17-foot water-ski boat and had recently acquired a jeep-type motor vehicle to tow it. He had instructed a mechanic at his business premises to check out and wire up the tail light from the jeep to the boat trailer. When he went out to the jeep to drive it home, he noticed that the boat and trailer were up in the air (the bow up and the stern down), and that an electrical wire was still connected from the jeep to the trailer. As he was attempting to disconnect the wire while standing on a small ledge at the rear of the jeep, the boat and trailer tipped forward and came down, sandwiching his hand between the trailer and the backup light of the jeep. He testified that when he saw the boat and trailer descending he managed to get inside the jeep but did not have time to get his hand out of the way. The jeep itself did not move; only the boat and trailer moved.
At the time of the accident, Pridgen had a policy of insurance with Auto-Owners. The policy provided that Auto-Owners would pay in accordance with the Personal Injury Protection (PIP) provisions of the Florida Automobile Reparations Reform Act (the 'No-Fault' Insurance Law). 1 Essentially tracking the statute, 2 the policy provisions are as follows '(Personal Injury Protection benefits will be paid) . . . as a result of bodily injury, caused by an accident arising out of the ownership, maintenance, or use of a motor vehicle and sustained by:
(1) the named insured or any relative while occupying a motor vehicle or, while a pedestrian, through being struck by a motor vehicle; or
(2) any other person while occupying the insured motor vehicle or, while a pedestrian, through being struck by the insured motor vehicle.'
Auto-Owners concedes that the jeep is a defined, covered motor vehicle; that the named insured sustained the complained of injury; and that the insured was 'occupying' the motor vehicle since he was standing on it or entering it at the time of the accident. It posits, however, as the narrow issue herein, whether or not the accident Arose out of...
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