Hercules Casualty Ins. Co. v. Preferred Risk Ins. Co., 7520.

• Citation: 337 F.2d 1
• Decision Date: 13 October 1964
• Docket Number: No. 7520.,7520.
• Parties: HERCULES CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. PREFERRED RISK INSURANCE COMPANY, Sue Walters, Wein T. Lee, and Larry Jackson Cooper, Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (10th Circuit)

337 F.2d 1 (1964)

HERCULES CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. PREFERRED RISK INSURANCE COMPANY, Sue Walters, Wein T. Lee, and Larry Jackson Cooper, Appellees.

No. 7520.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

October 13, 1964.

Alfred B. Knight, Tulsa, Okl., for appellant.

Hudson, Hudson, Wheaton, Kyle & Brett and W. F. Kyle, Tulsa, Okl., for appellee Preferred Risk Ins. Co.

Before PHILLIPS and BREITENSTEIN, Circuit Judges, and CHRISTENSEN, District Judge.

CHRISTENSEN, District Judge.

This action, based upon diversity jurisdiction, was brought by Preferred Risk Insurance Company against Hercules Casualty Insurance Company, Sue Walters, Wein T. Lee and Larry Jackson Cooper, for a declaratory judgment. A policy of liability insurance had been issued by Preferred Risk to Larry Jackson Cooper, covering a 1962 Chevrolet pickup truck. Another policy had been issued by Hercules to Robert Jackson Cooper, father of Preferred Risk's insured, covering a 1957 GMC pickup truck. While the son was driving his father's truck on September 8, 1962, it collided with an automobile being driven by one Bartlett, with whom appellee Lee was riding. The latter was injured, as was appellee Walters, who was riding with the son.¹ The trial court sustained coverage under the Hercules policy but not under Preferred Risk's, and entered judgment accordingly. This appeal by Hercules involves the construction of the coverage provisions of the respective policies in view of the temporary exchange between father and son of the use of their trucks under the circumstances now to be noted.

A few days before the collision in question the father, Robert Jackson Cooper, decided to take a trip to visit another son in a distant city and, believing that the newer pickup truck belonging to his son, Larry, would be more suitable, suggested an exchange of trucks for the purposes of the trip. What the son would do with the father's pickup truck was not discussed, and there was no condition, instruction or limitation concerning its use by the son. The father utilized the son's truck for the purposes indicated. The son used the father's truck for his own purposes, as he would have done had he been driving his own; and he was so using his father's truck at the time of the collision. Actually he did nothing for his father during the period the vehicles were exchanged, although there is testimony from the father, apparently without reference to the exchange, that he had asked his son to "check on the family for groceries on Saturday to see if they needed any groceries". The facts are not substantially controverted or questioned among the parties.

The pertinent provisions of the Preferred Risk policy (issued to the son as named insured) are:

"Preferred Risk Insurance Company * * * Agrees * * *

"PART I — LIABILITY

"To pay on behalf of the insured all sums which the insured shall become legally obligated to pay as damages. * * *

"Arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the owned automobile or any non-owned automobile. * * *

"Definitions under Part I:

"`non-owned automobile\' means an automobile or trailer not owned by the named insured or any relative. * * *

"`private passenger automobile\' means a private passenger, station wagon or jeep type automobile;

"`Utility automobile\' means an automobile with a load capacity of fifteen hundred pounds or less of the pickup body, sedan delivery or panel truck type. * * *

"Persons insured. * * *

"The following are insureds under Part I:

"(a) With respect to the owned automobile

"(1) The named insured and any resident of the same household.

"(b) With respect to a non-owned automobile,

"(1) the named insured, and any relative, but only with respect to a private passenger automobile or trailer not regularly furnished for the use of the named insured or such relative; * * *.

"Exclusions. * * *

"(f) to a non-owned automobile while used (1) in the automobile business by the insured or (2) in any other business or occupation of the insured except a private passenger automobile operated or occupied by the named insured or by his private chauffeur or domestic servant, or a trailer used therewith. * * *"

The pertinent provisions of the Hercules policy (issued to the father as named insured) are:

"Persons Insured. The following are insureds under the Liability * * * Coverages.

"(a) with respect to an owned automobile. * * *

"(2) any relative using such automobile to whom the named insured has given direct and express permission for its use, provided the use is within the scope of such permission.

"(3) any person while using such automobile for and on behalf of the named insured at the direct and express request of the named insured. * * *

"Definitions:

"`relative\' means a relative of the named insured who is a resident of the same household, provided neither he nor his spouse owns a private passenger automobile."

The trial court was clearly right in concluding that the son's Preferred Risk policy did not cover the father's vehicle at the time of the collision. The father's truck while used by the son was under the son's Preferred Risk policy a "non-owned vehicle other than a private passenger automobile", to-wit, "a utility automobile * * * with a load capacity of fifteen hundred pounds or less of the pick-up body, sedan delivery or panel truck type". As such, its use was expressly excluded from the Preferred Risk coverage. There is no leeway in the language of the policy to permit the construction urged by appellant that since the son's policy covered an owned pickup truck it should be held to apply also to a non-owned vehicle of the same character. The Preferred Risk policy expressly stipulated to the contrary.

The cases cited by appellant, such as Fidelity & Casualty Co. of New York v. Martin, 9th Cir., 66 F.2d 438 (1938), indicating that the term "private passenger automobile" may be construed to include a truck, are not apposite because in those cases the interpretation was not precluded by the terms of the policy. The line of cases in point here is illustrated by Johnston v. Maryland Casualty Co., 22 Wash.2d 305, 155 P.2d 806 (1945). Where the language of an insurance contract is unambiguous there is no room for construction. Order of United Commercial Travelers of America v. Edwards, 10th Cir., 51 F.2d 187 (1931). Stipulations not actually made, and to which the parties might not have assented, cannot be imported into the contract, and the law does not permit to be interpolated what the parties themselves have not stipulated. Phoenix Oil Co. v. Mid-Continent...