Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Superior Court of L. A. Cnty.

• Decision Date: 21 January 2014
• Docket Number: B248324
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: FARMERS INSURANCE EXCHANGE, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Los Angeles County, Respondent; Jose Luis Cervantes Bautista et al., Real Parties in Interest.

220 Cal.App.4th 1199

163 Cal.Rptr.3d 609

FARMERS INSURANCE EXCHANGE, Petitioner,

v.The SUPERIOR COURT of Los Angeles County, Respondent;

Jose Luis Cervantes Bautista et al., Real Parties in Interest.

B248324

Court of Appeal,

Second District, Division 7, California.

Filed October 1, 2013

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing October 28, 2013

Review Denied January 21, 2014

See 2 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (10th ed. 2005) Insurance, § 144.

ORIGINAL PROCEEDINGS in mandate. Salvatore Sirna, Judge. Petition granted. (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BC477720).

Archer Norris, Limor Lehavi, Mariyetta A. Meyers–Lopez, Newport Beach; Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland, Robert A. Olson and Feris M. Greenberger, Los Angeles, for Petitioner.

No appearance for respondent.

Louis G. Fazzi, Los Angeles, and Fernando J. Bernheim, Upland, for Real Parties in Interest.

SEGAL, J.^*

INTRODUCTION

Farmers Insurance Exchange (Farmers) petitions this court for a writ of mandate directing the trial court to set aside its order denying Farmers' motion for summary adjudication. Farmers brought this action for declaratory relief and sought summary adjudication on the ground there was no potential for coverage under the homeowners insurance policy it issued to its insureds, real parties in interest Jose Luis Cervantes Bautista and Sara Bautista. We agree with Farmers and grant the petition.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Farmers issued a homeowners insurance policy for a house in Pomona to Jose Bautista and Lourdes M. Sanchez. Sara Bautista, Jose's wife, was an additional insured under the policy. The policy provided personal liability coverage in the amount of $300,000 per occurrence under Coverage E, which states: “We pay those damages which an insured becomes legally obligated to pay because of bodily injury ... resulting from an occurrence to which this coverage applies.” (Bold omitted.) The policy excludes from Coverage E bodily injury that “7. results from the ownership, maintenance, use, loading or unloading of ... b. motor vehicles....” (Bold omitted.)

Farmers also issued a vehicle insurance policy covering a 2004 Dodge pickup truck owned by Jose Bautista. The policy provided coverage for bodily injury in the amounts of $30,000 per person and $60,000 per occurrence. Under Coverage A, the policy provided: “We will pay damages for which any insured person is legally liable because of bodily injury to any person ... arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of a private passenger car, a utility car, or a utility trailer.” ¹

On August 17, 2007 the Bautistas' granddaughter, Valerie Bautista, who was less than two years old, was killed in the driveway of the Bautistas' house when Jose Bautista ran over her with his pickup truck. Sara Bautista routinely allowed the grandchildren to greet Jose at his truck when he came home. She knew that she needed to take extra precautions and supervise the younger grandchildren, including Valerie, when they went to greet Jose, to keep them out of what the Bautistas call the “zone of danger.” On the day of the accident, however, Valerie “got out of the house without [Sara] knowing it.” She walked in front of Jose's truck, and he ran her over.

On August 14, 2009 Valerie's mother, Kenia Casaya, and her sisters filed an action against the Bautistas and Valerie's father, Jose Luis Bautista, Jr., for wrongful death, negligence, and negligent supervision. Their second amended complaint, which included Valerie's father as a plaintiff rather than a defendant, contained two causes of action, the first for negligence in operating a motor vehicle and the second for general negligence. In the second cause of action, the plaintiffs alleged that “[d]efendant SARA BAUTISTA, so negligently cared for, supervised, watched, managed, controlled and failed to care for, supervise, watch, manage and control decedent Valerie Bautista, who was a[t] the time an infant under the age of two (2) years, as to allow decedent Valerie Bautista to leave Defendant's [ sic ] home unsupervised, where she was run over and killed by Defendant JOSE LUIS BAUTISTA, while in the driveway of Defendants' home.” (Underscoring omitted.)

Farmers provided a defense to the Bautistas in the Casaya action. On July 6, 2012 the parties resolved that action by a stipulated judgment in the amount of $360,000. In addition, the plaintiffs signed a covenant not to execute on the judgment in exchange for an assignment of action by the Bautistas.

Farmers then filed this action against the Bautistas for declaratory relief. Farmers sought a declaration that it was not obligated to provide coverage under the Bautistas' homeowners insurance policy with respect to the Casaya action for two reasons: (1) The motor vehicle exclusion in the homeowners policy precluded any potential coverage because all of the claims in the Casaya action arose out of Jose Bautista's use of a motor vehicle; and (2) the homeowners policy excluded coverage for residents of the insureds' household, and Valerie was a resident of the Bautistas' household at the time of the accident. The Bautistas filed a cross-complaint for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and for fraud based on Farmers' failure to pay benefits due under both the homeowners and automobile insurance policies.

Farmers filed a motion for summary adjudication on the complaint and the Bautistas' cross-complaint on the ground there was no potential for coverage and thus no duty to defend or indemnify the Bautistas under the homeowners insurance policy. Relying on State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Partridge (1973) 10 Cal.3d 94, 109 Cal.Rptr. 811, 514 P.2d 123 (Partridge ) and National American Ins. Co. v. Coburn (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 914, 257 Cal.Rptr. 591 (Coburn ), Farmers argued that because Jose's use of a vehicle caused Valerie's death, and Sara's negligent supervision of Valerie was not an independent cause of Valerie's death, the motor vehicle exclusion in the homeowners insurance policy precluded coverage under that policy. The Bautistas opposed the motion on the ground that two independent negligent acts, Jose's negligent use of the vehicle and Sara's negligent supervision of the children, caused Valerie's death. The Bautistas argued that under Partridge and State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Kohl (1982) 131 Cal.App.3d 1031, 182 Cal.Rptr. 720 (Kohl ) Sara Bautista was independently liable for Valerie's death because she placed Valerie in the “zone of danger,” and therefore the Bautistas' homeowners insurance policy provided coverage.

The trial court agreed with the Bautistas and denied Farmers' motion for summary adjudication. The court found that under Partridge and Kohl “Sara Bautista's negligent supervision [of Valerie] exists independently of the ‘use’ of a motor vehicle.” The court concluded that the motor vehicle exclusion in the homeowners insurance policy did not apply.

Farmers filed this petition for writ of mandate seeking review of the order denying its summary adjudication motion. (Code Civ. Proc., § 437c, subd. (m)(1).) We issued an order to show cause why the writ should not be granted.

DISCUSSION

A. Propriety of Writ Review and Standard of Review

“ ‘An order denying a motion for summary adjudication may be reviewed by way of a petition for writ of mandate. [Citation.] Where the trial court's denial of a motion for summary judgment will result in trial on non-actionable claims, a writ of mandate will issue. [Citations.] Likewise, a writ of mandate may issue to prevent trial of nonactionable claims after the erroneous denial of a motion for summary adjudication. [¶] Since a motion for summary judgment or summary adjudication “involves pure matters of law,” we review a ruling on the motion de novo to determine whether the moving and opposing papers show a triable issue of material fact. [Citations.] Thus, the appellate court need not defer to the trial court's decision. “ ‘We are not bound by the trial court's stated reasons, if any, supporting its ruling; we review the ruling, not its rationale.’ ” [Citation.]' [Citation.]” (Arnall v. Superior Court (2010) 190 Cal.App.4th 360, 364, 118 Cal.Rptr.3d 379; accord, Diamond v. Superior Court (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 1172, 1182, 159 Cal.Rptr.3d 110.)

B. The Applicable Law

The leading case in this area of law is Partridge. In Partridge the defendant was insured under homeowners and automobile policies issued by State Farm. The homeowners policy excluded coverage for injuries arising out of the use of an automobile. The defendant owned a pistol that he had modified by filing the trigger mechanism so that it had “hair trigger action.” He was out driving his four-wheel drive Ford Bronco with two friends and using the pistol to shoot jackrabbits through an open window when the car hit a bump and the pistol discharged. The bullet hit and seriously injured one of his friends. (Partridge, supra, 10 Cal.3d at pp. 96–98, 109 Cal.Rptr. 811, 514 P.2d 123.) The trial court found that the defendant's negligence in modifying the pistol was an independent, concurrent proximate cause of the friend's injuries, and therefore his homeowners insurance as well as his automobile insurance provided coverage for the accident. (Id. at p. 99, 109 Cal.Rptr. 811, 514 P.2d 123.)

The court observed that the use of the defendant's vehicle was not the sole cause of the victim's injuries “but was only one of two joint causes of the accident,” with the other cause being the modification of the pistol. (Partridge, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 102, 109 Cal.Rptr. 811, 514 P.2d 123.) Assuming the connection between the vehicle and the accident was “the type of non-ambiguous causal relationship which would normally bring the exclusionary clause into play, the crucial question presented [was] whether a liability insurance policy provides coverage for an accident caused jointly by an insured risk (the negligent filing of the trigger mechanism) and by an excluded risk (the...