Hudson River Concrete Products Corp. v. Callanan Road Imp. Co.
| Decision Date | 19 December 1957 |
| Citation | 5 A.D.2d 49,168 N.Y.S.2d 801 |
| Parties | HUDSON RIVER CONCRETE PRODUCTS CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. The CALLANAN ROAD IMPROVEMENT COMPANY and Richard Van Valkenburg, Defendants. The CALLANAN ROAD IMPROVEMENT COMPANY, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, v. Richard VAN VALKENBURG, Third-Party Defendant. Richard VAN VALKENBURG, Third-Party Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, Appellant, v. The AMERICAN INSURANCE COMPANY, Third-Party Defendant, Respondent. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Henry H. Koblintz, Albany, for third-party defendant and third-party plaintiff-appellant.
Oliver, Scully & Delaney, Albany (Thomas J. Delaney, Albany, of counsel), for third-party defendant-respondent.
Before FOSTER, P. J., and BERGAN, COON, HALPERN, and GIBSON, JJ.
Despite the multiplicity of titles the only question presented on this appeal is the extent of coverage of an automobile liability insurance policy. In the interest of brevity and less confusion we will refer to each party by a 'single word name', adequate for identity, without reference to party status.
On July 16, 1953, Van Valkenburg, under contract with Callanan, hauled a load of fine stone screenings from Callanan to Hudson. Van Valkenburg backed his truck up to a hopper designed for receiving fine screenings, and by elevating the body of the truck emptied the contents into the hopper. The day before this occurrence Van Valkenburg had hauled some waste material known as 'riprap' for Callanan to a waste dump on Callanan's premises. In dumping this load he did not raise the truck body to its full height, and some of the pieces of the waste material remained on the bed of the truck and included large pieces of stone. When he unloaded the fine screenings into Hudson's hopper some of these large pieces of waste material became accidentally dislodged by the screenings and damaged Hudson's conveyor system. Hudson has obtained a judgment against Van Valkenburg for its undisputed damages of $1,373.84, plus costs, amounting to a total of $1,455.34. Van Valkenburg seeks to recover this sum from the Insurance Company which had in force an automobile liability insurance policy, which included Van Valkenburg as an 'insured' and covered a 'dump truck' used for 'Hauling exclusively for Callanan Road Imp. Co. S. Bethlehem, N. Y.' By the terms of the policy the Insurance Company agreed to pay, among other things, all sums which Van Valkenburg became 'legally obligated to pay' for property damage 'caused by accident and arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the automobile.' A further provision included within 'use' the 'loading and unloading' of the vehicle.
The Insurance Company contends first that an exclusion clause in the policy which excluded coverage for 'liability assumed by the insured under any contract or agreement' is applicable, because Van Valkenburg was hauling for Callanan under a contract. This contention is wholly without merit. It is very obvious that this clause was intended only to prevent the insured from agreeing to liability, which was not done here, and the clause does not relate to a contract to haul materials for another. If the latter were true the insured would have no coverage under the policy unless he was hauling his own material, which, of course, was not contemplated in any event, but certainly not when the express terms of the policy provided that the vehicle was to be used for hauling for Callanan.
The other, and more serious question raised by the Insurance Company, is that the property damage did not arise out of the 'ownership, maintenance or use' of the vehicle and was not connected with the loading or unloading thereof within the policy coverage. Although there are numerous authorities on this subject in other jurisdictions with varying interpretations of similar policies, we need look no further than the courts of New York State. New York courts have construed such policies liberally. In this State coverage is definitely not limited to damage caused by the use of the vehicle as a vehicle, nor to its operation along a highway, nor to damage caused by unloading immediately and physically connected with the vehicle. Loading and unloading includes the complete operation, in some cases quite removed from the vehicle itself. In Wagman v. American Fidelity & Cas. Co., 304 N.Y. 490, 109 N.E.2d 592, the insured trucker was waiting at the curb while employees of the customer brought racks of clothes to the truck for loading. A supervisory employee of the customer, who was...
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