Horak v. Middlesex Mut. Assur. Co.
Decision Date | 29 July 1980 |
Citation | 436 A.2d 783,181 Conn. 614 |
Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Parties | Jiri HORAK v. MIDDLESEX MUTUAL ASSURANCE COMPANY. |
H. Bissell Carey, III, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, was Charles L. Howard, Simsbury, for appellant (defendant).
Benson A. Snaider, New Haven, for appellee (plaintiff).
Before COTTER, C. J., and BOGDANSKI, PETERS, PARSKEY and ARMENTANO, JJ.
The sole issue involved in this appeal is whether certain fire-damaged premises were excluded from insurance coverage because of a rental agreement existing at the time the fire occurred.
On September 25, 1977, the plaintiff owned property at 482 Loop Road in the town of Clinton. There were two separate structures on the property: the main house used by the plaintiff and his wife as their residence, and the guest house, which contained two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bath and attached two-car garage. On September 25, 1977, the guest house was used and occupied by Roland Smith pursuant to a rental agreement providing that Smith would pay $40 to use the premises and $10 for utilities.
A fire occurred on September 25, 1977, in the guest house. It started in the bedroom next to the garage and caused damage to the structure itself, to the bedroom furniture and to tools and machinery located in the garage. The defendant insurer's adjuster estimated that it would cost $5280.51 to repair the damaged structure. At the time of the fire, policy No. H714386, issued by the defendant insurer to the plaintiff, was in effect.
The trial court concluded that coverage for the fire damage to the plaintiff's appurtenant structure was not excluded by the terms of the policy of insurance. We cannot agree.
Coverage B of policy No. H714386 provides:
It is undisputed that the guest house was an appurtenant structure as described by the terms of coverage B and that Smith was not a tenant of the "described dwelling building" as defined in the policy.
Where the language of an insurance policy is clear and unambiguous, the terms of the policy must be given their natural and ordinary meaning. See, e. g., Weingarten v. Allstate Ins. Co., 169 Conn. 502, 509-510, 363 A.2d 1055; Plunkett v. Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co., 150 Conn. 203, 206-207, 187 A.2d 754; Porto v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 120 Conn. 196, 200, 180 A. 289. Coverage B includes two exclusions separated by the disjunctive "or." It is clear that as used in coverage B of the policy in question, the word "or" does not require both exclusions to be met before coverage is excluded, a result which would only occur if the conjunction "and" was used in the policy. Rather, the use of the disjunctive conjunction "or" unambiguously requires that either of the exclusions separated by the conjunction, if applicable, excludes coverage. See, e. g., State v. Pascucci, 164 Conn. 69, 72, 316 A.2d 750, 752 (...
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