Board of Education v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 23 July 2002
• Docket Number: (SC 16490)
• Citation: 261 Conn. 37,801 A.2d 752
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF BRIDGEPORT v. ST. PAUL FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY

261 Conn. 37

801 A.2d 752

BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY OF BRIDGEPORT v. ST. PAUL FIRE AND MARINE INSURANCE COMPANY

(SC 16490)

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued December 5, 2001.

Officially released July 23, 2002.

Norcott, Katz, Palmer, Vertefeuille and Zarella, Js. Arthur C. Laske III, assistant city attorney, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Anthony R. Zelle, pro hac vice, with whom was Linda L. Morkan, for the appellee (defendant).

Opinion

VERTEFEUILLE, J.

This case, which comes to us upon our acceptance of a certified question from the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, requires us to decide whether the defendant, St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, is obligated to defend and indemnify the plaintiff, the board of education of the city of Bridgeport, in a civil action brought against it arising out of the alleged sexual assault of a student following her departure from a school bus owned by the plaintiff and driven by one of the plaintiff's employees. We answer the certified question in the affirmative.

The plaintiff brought this breach of contract action in the Superior Court after the defendant refused to provide the plaintiff with a defense in the underlying litigation. The defendant removed the present case to the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. Subsequently, the plaintiff and the defendant moved for partial summary judgment on the issue of whether the defendant was required to defend and indemnify the plaintiff. The District Court denied both motions without prejudice and, pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199b (d), certified a question of law to this court.¹ We conclude that the defendant must provide a defense to the plaintiff in the underlying action, and also must indemnify the plaintiff should the plaintiff become obligated to pay a judgment arising out of certain of the allegations of negligence in that action.

In the complaint in the underlying action (Doe complaint), Jane Doe and her mother, Mary Doe, made the following allegations. In 1996, Jane Doe was a seventeen year old special education student attending Bassick High School in Bridgeport. After being transported to Bassick High School on a school bus owned by the plaintiff and operated by one of its employees, Jane Doe exited the bus and entered a ladies' room inside the school. A fellow special education student who also was on the bus followed Jane Doe into the ladies' room and sexually assaulted her. The Doe complaint alleged, inter alia, that the bus driver's negligence in allowing the students to disembark from the school bus and enter the school building unsupervised gave rise to Jane Doe's injuries.² The Doe complaint also alleged that Mary Doe incurred financial loss for expenditures for Jane Doe's medical and psychological treatment because of the plaintiff's negligence.

After the Does initiated the underlying action, the plaintiff filed a claim under the commercial automobile liability insurance policy (policy) issued to it by the defendant, requesting that the defendant defend and indemnify the plaintiff in the Does' action. The defendant denied the claim, asserting that because the alleged incident did not result from the use of the school bus, the defendant had no duty to defend or indemnify the plaintiff under the terms of the policy. The plaintiff then initiated this action.

The first issue presently before us is whether, under the terms of the policy issued by the defendant, the defendant has a duty to defend the plaintiff in the action brought against it by the Does. "[C]onstruction of a contract of insurance presents a question of law for the court which this court reviews de novo." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Hansen v. Ohio Casualty Ins. Co., 239 Conn. 537, 543, 687 A.2d 1262 (1996). Moreover, "[t]he principles governing our determination of this issue are well settled. [A]n insurer's duty to defend, being much broader in scope and application than its duty to indemnify, is determined by reference to the allegations contained in the [underlying] complaint.. . . The obligation of the insurer to defend does not depend on whether the injured party will successfully maintain a cause of action against the insured but on whether he has, in his complaint, stated facts which bring the injury within the coverage. If the latter situation prevails, the policy requires the insurer to defend, irrespective of the insured's ultimate liability. . . . It necessarily follows that the insurer's duty to defend is measured by the allegations of the complaint. . . . Hence, if the complaint sets forth a cause of action within the coverage of the policy, the insurer must defend." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Community Action for Greater Middlesex County, Inc. v. American Alliance Ins. Co., 254 Conn. 387, 398, 757 A.2d 1074 (2000).³ We must, therefore, compare the allegations contained in the Doe complaint with the language of the policy to determine whether the defendant is required to defend the plaintiff in the underlying litigation.

Paragraph five of count eleven of the Doe complaint alleges in relevant part that "[t]he [bus driver] was negligent in that he . . . (b) Allowed students to depart from his bus, who were unsupervised, although he knew or should have known that said students were required to be supervised from the bus to the school . . . ."⁴ The relevant policy language provides: "Bodily injury and property damage liability. [The defendant will] pay amounts any protected person is legally required to pay as damages for covered bodily injury or property damage that: results from the ownership, maintenance, use, loading or unloading of a covered auto; and is caused by an accident that happens while this agreement is in effect." (Emphasis added.) Resolution of the certified issue in this case thus turns on whether the injuries alleged in the Doe complaint resulted from the "use" of the school bus within the meaning of the policy language. More specifically, the plaintiff claims that because the appropriate standard of care required the bus driver to keep the students on the bus until their discharge into the supervision and care of school personnel, the alleged harm resulted from the use of the school bus within the meaning of the policy language. The defendant claims, however, that the bus was not being used when the alleged harm occurred, that the alleged harm was not causally related to the use of the school bus, and, therefore, that the allegations of the complaint do not fall within the coverage afforded by the policy. We agree with the plaintiff that the allegation of negligence contained in paragraph 5 (b) of count eleven of the Doe complaint cited previously sets forth a cause of action arising out of the use of the bus within the coverage of the policy. Accordingly, we conclude that the defendant has a duty to defend the plaintiff in the civil action brought against it by the Does.

We begin by interpreting the policy language in order to determine whether, at the time of the plaintiff's alleged negligence, the bus was being used in a manner contemplated by the policy. "The [i]nterpretation of an insurance policy, like the interpretation of other written contracts, involves a determination of the intent of the parties as expressed by the language of the policy. . . . The determinative question is the intent of the parties, that is, what coverage the . . . [insured] expected to receive and what the [insurer] was to provide, as disclosed by the provisions of the policy.... It is axiomatic that a contract of insurance must be viewed in its entirety, and the intent of the parties for entering it derived from the four corners of the policy. . . . The policy words must be accorded their natural and ordinary meaning . . . ." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Community Action for Greater Middlesex County, Inc. v. American Alliance Ins. Co., supra, 254 Conn. 399.

In construing the policy language, we are guided by the well established principle that the term "use" with reference to motor vehicles is to be interpreted broadly. "The term `use' is the general catch-all of the insuring clause, designed and construed to include all proper uses of the vehicle not falling within one of the previous terms of definition." (Emphasis added.) 6B J. Appleman & J. Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice (1979) § 4316, pp. 341-42; see 8 G. Couch, Insurance (3d Ed. 1997) § 119:37, pp. 55-56 ("[t]he term `use' must be understood in its most comprehensive sense; and the term is not confined to motion on the highway, but extends to any activity in utilizing the insured vehicle in the manner intended or contemplated by the insured"); see also Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Michigan Mutual Ins. Co., 452 Mich. 218, 226-29, 549 N.W.2d 872 (1996) ("`Use' is defined more broadly than the mere carrying of persons and, while it encompasses the `operation' of the bus, it may also include a range of activity unrelated to actual driving.... [T]he term `use' in the phrase `arising out of the ownership, maintenance, or use' of a school bus includes disembarking school children . . . at the predetermined location." [Citation omitted.]).⁵ "The determination of whether an act constitutes `use' of a motor vehicle [is] . . . very fact specific. When determining the meaning of the term `use' in an automobile insurance policy, a court must examine the factual circumstances of each case, including the particular characteristics of the vehicle." 6B J. Appleman & J. Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice (Cum. Sup. 2001) § 4316, p. 88.

At oral argument in this court, the defendant conceded that delivering students safely to a particular physical location is a use of the school bus within the meaning of the policy, and further admitted that the use of the school bus ends after the students depart from the bus. The defendant argues, however, that delivering students into the...