LeBlanc v. Broussard

• Decision Date: 11 March 1981
• Docket Number: No. 7811,7811
• Parties: Lloyd LeBLANC et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Claude J. BROUSSARD et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

Page 535

396 So.2d 535

Lloyd LeBLANC et al., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Claude J. BROUSSARD et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 7811.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

March 11, 1981.

Cooper & Sonnier, John E. Ortego, Abbeville, for defendants-appellants.

Voorhies & Labbe, Richard D. Chappuis, Jr., Allen, Gooch & Bourgeois, Joel E. Gooch, Lafayette, for defendant-appellee.

Darrel J. Hartman, Kaplan, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Before CULPEPPER, FORET and SWIFT, JJ.

SWIFT, Judge.

Lloyd LeBlanc and his wife, Gloria Veazey LeBlanc, sued Claude J. Broussard and others to recover damages for personal injuries received in a tractor-automobile collision. The collision occurred on October 4, 1977, at the intersection of U.S. Highway 167 and a parish road near Maurice, Louisiana. Mr. Broussard was the driver of the tractor. The automobile was driven by Mrs. LeBlanc and her husband was a passenger therein.

The pertinent facts are stated in an affidavit by Mr. Broussard attached to a motion for a summary judgment. He and his brother, Harris Broussard, have a farming partnership which occasionally undertakes haying operations for other people for hire. On the day of the collision Claude Broussard was driving his brother's tractor pulling a three-point mowing machine from his home to land leased by Kenneth Vincent in order to cut grass for making hay. Mr. Vincent was to pay the partnership a unit price for each bale of hay.

The plaintiffs joined Audubon Insurance Company, Mr. Broussard's insurer, as one of the defendants. Audubon moved for a summary judgment and it was sustained. Defendant, Claude Broussard, appealed.

The only issue to be decided by this court is whether the "business pursuits" exclusionary clause in the homeowner's insurance policy issued appellant by Audubon excluded coverage under these circumstances.

The clause provides:

"This policy does not apply:

"1. Under Coverage E Personal Liability and Coverage F Medical Payments to Others:

"d. to bodily injury or property damage arising out of business pursuits of any Insured except activities therein which are ordinarily incident to non business pursuits; "

In his first argument appellant attempts to analogize "business pursuits" with the general rule in workmen compensation cases that an accident befalling an employee while he is going to and from work does not occur in the course of his employment. Broussard contends that until he reached Mr. Vincent's field and began cutting grass he was not engaged in a business pursuit.

Generally, coverage under the workmen's compensation act is not extended to such trips due to the substantial administrative problems involved. The courts do not wish to become involved in the controversy of determining when such trips begin and end. Louisiana Civil Law Treatise, Workers' Compensation (2d Ed.), Malone and Johnson, § 168. The purpose of the "business pursuits" exclusion in a homeowner's policy is to lower rates by removing coverage which is not essential to the purchasers and which would require specialized rating and underwriting. 48 ALR 3rd 1096, 1098. The terms, "business pursuits" and "course of employment," serve different purposes in these separate contexts and are not analogous in the circumstances.

Clearly, Mr. Broussard was engaged in a business pursuit in driving this tractor to the field where he was to cut hay for a price and presumably for a profit. It was a necessary and an essential part of the commercial enterprise.

Appellant contends, however, that because he often drives a tractor in cutting his own grass or performing such favors for friends or relatives without compensation, his activity at the time of the accident (i. e. driving the tractor to where the business was to commence) was ordinarily incident to a non-business pursuit. As a consequence, the exception in the exclusionary clause was applicable and he was covered by the policy.

In Appelman's Insurance Law and Practice (Berdal ed.), Vol. 7A, § 4501.10, at pages 276 and 277, this particular policy exclusion is explained as follows:

"The business pursuit exclusion is intended to apply to all activities that are involved in furtherance of any business, employment, trade, occupation or profession. There are relatively few functions, such as walking, opening and closing doors, bending or standing that a person performs in a business that cannot be viewed in isolation as nonbusiness activity. One cannot perform normal work without engaging in such functions or activities, and to treat these activities in isolation as incidental to nonbusiness activity would render this exclusion meaningless."

And further in § 4501.11, at page 279, it is stated:

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