Cartier v. Cartier

• Decision Date: 06 January 1931
• Parties: CARTIER v. CARTIER et al.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

153 A. 6

CARTIER

v. CARTIER et al.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Belknap.

Jan. 6, 1931.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Belknap County; Matthews, Judge.

Bill by George Cartier against Emile Cartier and another. Decree for plaintiff, and named defendant excepts.

Bill dismissed.

Bill to enforce an automobile liability policy. The defense rests only on a clause of the policy excepting liability for "accidents to members of the assured's household, including domestic or household servants." The plaintiff, his brother, insured by the policy, their father, mother, and sister all lived together in a house owned by the mother who ran it, and to whom the brothers and the father each paid board without other responsibility for any housekeeping expenses.

The court (Matthews, J.), ruling that the excepting clause is not a defense because the insured was not the head of the household, ordered a decree for the plaintiff. To the ruling and order, the insurer excepted.

Frank P. Tilton and Fortunat E. Normandin, both of Laconia, for plaintiff.

Murchie, Murchie & Blandin, all of Concord, for the insurer.

ALLEN, J.

It is said for the plaintiff that the excepting clause of the policy deals with a household of which the insured is the head and more than a member. To support the claim, it is argued that, since the clause expressly includes servants of a household within its membership, and since such servants are only servants of its head and not of its other members, it follows that the insured must be its head within a proper meaning of the clause. And, even if the meaning is doubtful, it is urged that the same result should be reached as the one more probably understood by the insured.

Argument is also advanced that the insured would not have accepted the policy if the excepting clause applied to him, since it would cost no more to obtain a policy without the clause. The record shows no facts to sustain this point of argument or that the insured's acceptance of the policy was in any way influenced by its cost. There is nothing to indicate that the amount of the premium affected his understanding of the clause. This point must therefore be disregarded.

A household is a group of persons living together. It is usually said that they must be under a head called the householder. Of the household here apparently the mother was the head. The insured and his brother being members of it, it was their household or the household of each of them. There were no servants in it, but, if there had been, it would still have been theirs. The clause does not refer to servants of the insured, but to the household embracing the servants in its membership.

It was the assured's household, even if the servants, had there been any, would not have been his. The clause would not seem to be doubtful in a disclosed purpose to make membership in a household on the part of the insured enough to subject him to it. It is the natural and ordinary meaning of the words used. As one reads the clause, the policy gives the insured no protection for injury to members of his household, and the household includes any servants in it.

But, if it be called doubtful whether the clause is operative unless the insured is the household head, the construction of an insurance policy is governed by the same general principles used in the case of other written instruments. Stone v. Insurance Co., 69 N. H. 438, 440, 45 A. 235; Marsh v. Insurance Co., 71 N. H. 253, 254, 51 A. 898. It is said in Watson v. Insurance Co., 83 N. H. 200, 202, 140 A. 169,170: "The test is not what the insurer intended its words to mean, but what a reasonable person in the position of the insured would have understood them to mean." This is only an application of the general rule based on justice and common sense, that the meaning of one's writings, as well as of his speech, when doubtful, is to be determined in the light of the situation in which they are presented or uttered. Of such situation the position of the party addressed is a feature. What the latter would naturally understand to be the meaning is to be given effect, because the standard is external. Fitch Co. v. Insurance. Co., 82 N. H. 318, 319, 133 A. 340. If one says to another one thing and means to himself something else, he is held to what he says, and...