Doe v. State Farm Fire and Cas. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 March 1995
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 94-759-A.
• Citation: 878 F. Supp. 862
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia
• Parties: Jane DOE, Plaintiff, v. STATE FARM FIRE AND CASUALTY COMPANY, et al., Defendants.

878 F. Supp. 862

Jane DOE, Plaintiff, v. STATE FARM FIRE AND CASUALTY COMPANY, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 94-759-A.

United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, at Alexandria.

March 8, 1995.

Kevin L. Locklin, J. Edward Flournoy, P.C., Manassas, VA, Peter S. Everett, Blankingship & Keith, Fairfax, VA, for plaintiff.

Gary B. Mims, Brault, Palmer, Grove, Zimmerman, White & Mims, Fairfax, VA, for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ELLIS, District Judge.

Presented here is the question whether a standard uninsured motorist provision of a Virginia automobile insurance policy provides coverage for an incident in which an insured is abducted in a stolen vehicle, transported to an isolated location, and sexually assaulted within the automobile. More specifically, the question is whether the insured's injuries in these circumstances arose out of the "ownership, maintenance, or use" of the uninsured vehicle, as required by the terms of the policy. For the reasons that follow, the Court holds that the injuries did not so arise.

I.

The dispositive facts of this case are simple and undisputed. On November 16, 1992, Plaintiff Jane Doe¹ was working at a jewelry kiosk in Manassas Mall, a shopping center located in Prince William County, Virginia. At approximately 10:00 p.m., a man later identified as Richard Shane Collins approached Doe, drew a handgun, and proceeded to rob her of the day's store receipts. Gun in hand, Collins then demanded that Doe accompany him to the mall parking lot, where he forced her into a car he had stolen earlier that day. After driving Doe to an isolated location, Collins parked the car and sexually assaulted her at gun point within the confines of the vehicle. He then drove her to two more locations, sexually assaulting her at each stop. Fortunately, another vehicle approached at the third location, distracting Collins and thus allowing Doe to flee the car and her attacker.

During the course of the attack, Doe suffered numerous injuries. In addition to the harm accompanying the sexual assault itself, Doe received multiple abrasions over much of her body. She also sustained bruises and scratches to her neck from strangulation. Doe's hand was wounded by a bullet graze when she attempted at one point to wrest the gun from Collins, causing the weapon to discharge. She also received several bumps on her head from being pushed against the interior car window. And, as a result of this dreadful event, Doe has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Doe filed the instant lawsuit seeking recovery for her injuries under the uninsured motorist provisions of two automobile insurance policies insuring her.² The first policy, issued by Defendant State Farm Fire & Casualty Company, provides uninsured motorist coverage to Doe directly as a named insured. The second policy, issued by Defendant State Farm Mutual Insurance Company, covers Doe's father and his household family members.³ Because Doe was living with her father at the time of the assault, she also enjoys uninsured motorist coverage under this second policy. Both policies include a standard uninsured motorist provision that provides coverage for:

bodily injury sustained by the insured ..., caused by accident and arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of such uninsured motor vehicle.

There is no dispute that Doe sustained "bodily injury" within the meaning of this provision.⁴ Nor does State Farm dispute that Doe's injuries were "caused by accident."⁵ Rather, at issue here is whether Doe's injuries arose "out of the ownership, maintenance or use" of the stolen, and hence uninsured, vehicle. State Farm contends that Doe's injuries did not arise out of the "use" of the vehicle as contemplated by the parties to the insurance contract. In its view, there was an insufficient causal relationship between Doe's injuries and the use of the vehicle as a vehicle to warrant recovery in this instance. For her part, Doe argues that Collins' use of the vehicle to abduct, assault, confine, and transport her constitutes a "use" within the intended meaning of the insurance contract. On these undisputed facts and opposing contentions, both parties move for summary judgment.

II.

As the parties correctly agree, Virginia law governs this dispute.⁶ While there is no Supreme Court of Virginia decision directly on point, existing analogous decisions are instructive and ultimately dispositive.

Analysis properly begins with State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Powell, 227 Va. 492, 318 S.E.2d 393, 397 (1984), as that opinion announces certain basic principles to guide courts in interpreting "ownership, maintenance or use" provisions in automobile insurance policies.⁷ The starting point in determining the scope of insurance coverage, according to the Powell court, is "consideration ... of the intention of the parties." Id. In ascertaining that intent, courts construing "ownership, maintenance or use" language should be mindful of the purpose and subject matter of the insurance policy, and within that context, the words should be given their "natural and ordinary meaning." Id. Thus, it would be error to construe the provision's individual words out of context, in a vacuum as it were. Instead, the intended meaning of the provision may be discerned only by construing the words in light of the context in which they appear, that is, in an automobile insurance policy providing coverage for injuries arising out of the use of the vehicle. This is precisely what the Powell court commands. Specifically, the court concluded that

even though ownership, maintenance, or use of the vehicle need not be the direct, proximate cause of the injury in the strict legal sense, nevertheless, there must be a causal relationship between the accident and employment of the insured motor vehicle as a vehicle.

Id. (emphasis added).⁸

This conclusion, namely that there must be a causal connection between the injuries and the use of the vehicle as a vehicle, follows logically from a common sense inquiry into the probable intent of the parties. There are certain inherent dangers associated with vehicular travel. Automobiles are heavy and designed to travel at high speeds, rendering collisions particularly hazardous. Because of this risk, automobile owners purchase insurance to cover injuries arising out of the use of insured and uninsured vehicles as vehicles. Thus, while injuries resulting from a highway collision unquestionably arise out of a contemplated use of a vehicle as a vehicle, injuries stemming from an unobservant cyclist's collision with a parked automobile clearly do not. In the latter example, the injuries arise not from the use of the vehicle as a vehicle, but rather from the use of the vehicle as a heavy stationary object, no different from a tree, lamp post, or building wall. Similarly, two passengers who come to blows over an argument in the back seat of an automobile can hardly claim that their resulting injuries arose out of the vehicle's use as a vehicle. In such circumstances, the only relation of the injury to the vehicle is that the latter served as the situs or enclosure for the assault, no different from an apartment, an alley, or an elevator. Using a vehicle as a heavy stationary object or as an enclosure, rather than as a means of transportation, does not constitute a contemplated "use" under the terms of the policies.

The incident at bar falls somewhere between these polar examples. The causal nexus between Doe's injuries and the use of the stolen vehicle is plainly not as strong as it would be had she been struck by a moving automobile. On the other hand, there is some causal connection, for Collins used the vehicle to abduct Doe and transport her to an isolated location for the specific purpose of assaulting her. Yet, Doe's injuries, while somewhat causally connected to the car, are not connected to the use of the car as a car. Rather, the injuries here arise not from the use of the car as a car, i.e. as a means of transportation, but from the use of the car as an enclosure or situs for the commission of criminal acts. Nor is it significant that some of Doe's injuries resulted when Collins pushed her head against the interior car window. Physical contact of this sort with the automobile does not amount to a use of the car as a vehicle. It is no different from the situation where two pedestrians begin to argue, and one pushes the other against a parked car, causing injury. There, as here, the injury clearly would not arise out of the "use" of the vehicle under the terms of the insurance policies. Similarly, the fact that Collins used the vehicle as a vehicle to transport Doe to several isolated locations where he committed the assaults is unpersuasive. The use of a vehicle merely as transportation to the scene of a subsequent crime clearly does not satisfy the causation requirement between vehicle use and injury. Cf. Erie Ins. Co. v. Jones, 248 Va. 437, 448 S.E.2d 655, 656-59 (1994). And although Collins' transportation of Doe in the vehicle itself constitutes a criminal act, the injuries for which Doe seeks compensation arose not from the abduction, but from the subsequent assault. The distinction becomes clearer if one imagines that instead of assaulting Doe within the confines of the vehicle, Collins had abducted her, driven her to his apartment, and committed the attack inside his home. In that event, there would plainly be no coverage, despite Collins' use of the vehicle to abduct and transport her to the scene of the assault. The simple fact that Collins chose to accomplish his attack inside the vehicle does not create the requisite causal connection between the injuries suffered and the use of the vehicle as a vehicle. Thus, Doe's injuries did not arise out of the use of the uninsured vehicle and are not covered by the terms of the insurance policies.

III.

Subsequent decisions by the Supreme Court of Virginia support this...