Bituminous Cas. Corp. v. Aetna Life and Cas. Co.

• Decision Date: 06 May 1980
• Docket Number: No. 41879,41879
• Parties: BITUMINOUS CASUALTY CORPORATION, Appellant, v. AETNA LIFE AND CASUALTY COMPANY, Respondent.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 516

599 S.W.2d 516

BITUMINOUS CASUALTY CORPORATION, Appellant, v. AETNA LIFE AND CASUALTY COMPANY, Respondent.

No. 41879.

Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, Division Two.

May 6, 1980.

Gray & Ritter, Robert F. Ritter, Thomas C. De Voto, St. Louis, for appellant.

Joseph H. Mueller, J. C. Jaeckel, Moser, Marsalek, Carpenter, Cleary, Jaeckel, Keaney & Brown, St. Louis, for respondent.

GUNN, Presiding Judge.

This case presents a dispute between two insurance companies as to which should bear the loss of personal injury arising from an accident involving their respective insureds. Plaintiff-appellant Bituminous Casualty Corporation (Bituminous) settled the personal injury claim of an injured party after defendant-respondent Aetna Life and Casualty Corporation (Aetna) refused to defend a suit brought upon the claim. Bituminous then brought this action against Aetna for indemnification contending that Aetna's policy covered the loss. From an adverse decision of the trial court finding no policy coverage, Bituminous appeals. For the reasons which follow, we reverse and remand.

The facts are essentially undisputed but a bit complicated. Bituminous' insured, Metro Disposal Systems, owned a landfill site on which it maintained a bulldozer. The bulldozer was operated by Metro's employee, Lilburn Kitcherside. The injured party, Andrew Yates, was employed by Aetna's insured, ABC Roofing Company. A truck owned by ABC Roofing and attended by Yates became enmired while attempting to disgorge a load of refuse at Metro Disposal's landfill. Kitcherside was asked to assist in extricating the vehicle by pushing it with the bulldozer. In the pushing process the record is not clear whether the bulldozer was disengaged from the truck Yates was struck by the bulldozer blade and injured. Bituminous settled Yates' claim under its policy covering Metro Disposal Systems following Aetna's refusal to defend Yates' personal injury action. This proceeding followed.

Bituminous' theory of recovery is that Kitcherside Metro's bulldozer operator became an insured under Aetna's policy covering ABC Roofing when he "used" ABC's truck by pushing it. Thus so theorizes Bituminous Aetna shared in the liability for Yates' injury.

The omnibus clause of Aetna's policy covered ABC Roofing for liability occasioned by "any person while using the (insured) automobile and any person or organization legally responsible for the use thereof, provided the actual use is by the named insured or . . . spouse or with the permission of either."

The second provision of the policy involved here is the employee exclusion clause which purports to exclude coverage for any "bodily injury to or sickness, disease or death of any employee of the insured" arising in the course of the employee's employment by the name insured.

The third and most critical provision of the policy is the "severability clause":

The term "the insured" is used severally and not collectively, that the inclusion herein of more than one insured shall not operate to increase the limits of the company's liability.

The threshold question is whether Kitcherside, in assisting the ABC Roofing truck, became an omnibus insured under ABC's policy in the first instance. If his assistance in pushing the truck constitutes "use" of the truck with ABC's permission, Kitcherside would fall within its terms.

In our review, we first encounter the basic precept that omnibus provisions are to be read and construed to broaden policy coverage. Weathers v. Royal Indemnity Co., 577 S.W.2d 623 (Mo. banc 1979); Truck Ins. Exchange v. Hunt, 590 S.W.2d 425 (Mo.App.1979). Particularly apt, is the following language in Cameron Mutual Ins. Co. v. Ward, 599 S.W.2d 13, 15 (Mo.App.1980), citing and quoting from Schmidt v. Utilities Ins. Co., 353 Mo. 213, 218-19, 182 S.W.2d 181, 183-84 (1944):

Schmidt, premised upon the basic rule that insuring agreements which are susceptible of various interpretations are to be liberally construed in favor of the insured, holds that the "words 'arising out of * * * use' are very broad, general and comprehensive terms . . . (and the) words 'arising out of' . . . are ordinarily understood to mean 'originating from' or 'having its origin in,' 'growing out of' or 'flowing from'. . . ."

Missouri courts recognize that the term "use" in an omnibus clause imports more than the actual driving of or riding in a vehicle. See, e. g.: Allstate Insurance Co. v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., 486 S.W.2d 38, 43 and ff. (Mo.App.1972).

(M)any decisions have in effect recognized use as going beyond the narrow meaning of the direct mechanical operation performed by the driver and as encompassing the broader concept of employing or putting the vehicle into one's service by an act which assumes at any time with the consent of the owner or his agent the supervisory control or guidance of its movements.

Waltz v. Cameron Mutual Ins. Co., 526 S.W.2d 340, 344 (Mo.App.1975), quoting from Woodrich Construction Co. v. Indemnity Ins. Co., 252 Minn. 86, 89 N.W.2d 412, 418 (1958).

Extricating the immobilized truck by impelling it forward with the bulldozer is such an act as "assumes . . . supervisory control or guidance of its movements" and constitutes "use" of the truck within the intendment of the omnibus provision. This conclusion is supported by the reasoning of other courts that have had occasion to consider similar issues. See, e. g. : Wiebel v. American Farmers Mutual Insurance Co., 1 Storey 151, 51 Del. 151, 140 A.2d 712 (Del.Super.1958); Union Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. King, 113 N.H. 39, 300 A.2d 335 (1973); Dairyland Insurance Co. v. Drum, 568 P.2d 459 (Colo. banc 1977).

Aetna seeks to distinguish the present case from the above authorities on the basis that there was some evidence at trial indicating that contact between the bulldozer blade and truck had ceased as the blade was being lowered at the time Yates was struck. ¹ Therefore, Aetna argues, Kitcherside was not "using" the truck at the time of the injury, citing Wiebel v American Farmers Mutual Insurance Co. ; Poe v. Sheeley, 19 Wash.App. 833, 578 P.2d 63 (1978), and Barth v. Milwaukee Automobile Insurance Co. Limited Mutual, 268 Wis. 335, 67 N.W.2d 272 (1954). These authorities, however, do not support Aetna's argument that Kitcherside's omnibus coverage ceases the instant that contact between the two vehicles is broken. Poe and Barth merely hold that a Good Samaritan is not liable as a joint tortfeasor for injuries subsequently caused by a vehicle he has assisted where he no longer shares in any control over the vehicle. Wiebel, which Bituminous also cites, holds that the Samaritan's omnibus coverage does not extend to the disabled vehicle where he ceases pushing that vehicle with his own, instead assisting by pushing the vehicle by hand at the time the injury occurred. Conversely, Wiebel also holds that under the same circumstances the Samaritan is covered by the disabled vehicle's omnibus clause by virtue of the "use" language exactly the situation presented here. The crucial factor in determining whether coverage exists by virtue of "use" is not some hypertechnical concept of actual physical contact at the precise moment of injury. The pivotal criterion is, rather, whether the putative omnibus insured exercised a sufficient degree of control over the injuring instrumentality so as to have had some proximate causal responsibility for the accident:

Automobile insurance contracts protect against liability for accidents arising out of the "use" of vehicle (sic) but they cannot be held to protect against liability for accidents where the use of the automobile was not connected with the accident or the creation of a condition that caused the accident . . . .

In the case at bar the use of the Wiebel automobile to push the Scherff automobile in a reverse position out of the driveway had been completed or abandoned prior to any acts that might be found to be a proximate cause of the accident. (emphasis supplied)

Wiebel v. American Farmers Mutual Insurance Co., 140 A.2d at 714.

As stated in Cameron Mutual Ins. Co. v. Ward :

(A)lthough it is not required that the "use" of the automobile be the "direct and proximate" cause of the injury in the strict legal sense of causation permeating general tort law, there must be some causal connection between an injury and the "use" of an automobile in order for there to be coverage.

In this case, Kitcherside's "use" of the ABC Roofing truck by pushing it free was directly responsible for "the creation of a condition that caused the accident," i. e., the bulldozer moving...