Long Island Lighting Co. v. Hartford Acc. & Indem. Co.

• Decision Date: 21 December 1973
• Citation: 76 Misc.2d 832,350 N.Y.S.2d 967
• Parties: LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. HARTFORD ACCIDENT AND INDEMNITY COMPANY, Defendant.
• Court: New York Supreme Court

Page 967

350 N.Y.S.2d 967

76 Misc.2d 832

LONG ISLAND LIGHTING COMPANY, Plaintiff, v. HARTFORD ACCIDENT AND INDEMNITY COMPANY, Defendant.

Supreme Court, Special Term, Nassau County, Part III.

Dec. 21, 1973.

Edward M. Barrett, Mineola, for plaintiff.

Coppola & Schilling, New York City, for defendant.

BERTRAM HARNETT, Justice.

The modern trend has been to extend the class of persons insured under standardized automobile insurance policies. This is largely to protect the public, and to facilitate indemnity to innocent victims of vehicular misuse. However, an added principle in this extension is the interest of an auto owner or user, who, for one reason or another, feels the need to protect his associates and helpers in the use of his vehicle. The public, the owner, and participants in vehicular use are seen, in principle, to be the likely beneficiaries of the auto liability insuring scope.

However, what of strangers to the vehicle? Under what circumstances can they gain advantage of being 'insured' under the policy of some wholly unrelated party? When loose policy language results in an open door, who can walk in?

I. Setting of the Case

Long Island Lighting Company (popularly called LILCO in these precincts) stands at the door and seeks a declaration that it is an 'insured' as defined in a comprehensive automobile liability insurance policy issued by the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company to McGovern Sod Farms, Inc., a landscape gardener who owned a tractor trailer rig.

A McGovern employee, Herbert W. Zirk, was electrocuted in 1968 when a loading boom on the tractor trailer, which he was driving, struck high tension wires owned by LILCO and located on the property of Harold R. Hudson. The administrator for Zirk's estate has sued LILCO and landowner Hudson for personal injuries and wrongful death, having apparently been barred from suing employer McGovern by the Workmen's Compensation Act. See, Workmen's Compensation Law §§ 29, 53.

The plaintiff's complaint premises LILCO's liability upon faulty maintenance and safety control of the high tension wires. The parties have stipulated that the wires were maintained by LILCO and that the conduct of the tractor trailer truck was not for LILCO's use or benefit. LILCO was not a lessee or borrower of the tractor trailer. Significantly, it was agreed that the power for the tractor trailer came from that unit itself, and it was not connected to LILCO's equipment for any power source.

II. The Auto Liability 'Omnibus Clause' At Issue Here

Both contenders rely on the policy language. Hartford's 'Comprehensive Automobile Liability Insurance Coverage Part,' under Section II, 'PERSONS INSURED,' provides:

'Each of the following is an Insured under this insurance to the extent set forth below:

(a) the Named insured;

(b) any partner or executive officer thereof, but with respect to a Non-owned automobile only while such Automobile is being used in the business of the Named insured;

(c) any other person while using an Owned automobile or a Hired automobile with the permission of the Named insured, provided his actual operation or (if he is not operating) his other actual use thereof is whthin the scope of such permission, but with Respect to Bodily injury or Property damage arising out of the loading or unloading thereof, such other person shall be an Insured only if he is:

(1) a lessee or borrower of the Automobile, or

(2) an employee of the Named insured or of such lessee or borrower;

(d) ANY OTHER PERSON OR ORGANIZATION BUT ONLY WITH RESPECT TO HIS OR ITS LIABILITY BECAUSE OF ACTS OR OMISSIONS OF AN INSURED UNDER (a), (b) or (c) ABOVE'. (Subparagraph capitalization supplied for emphasis).

Subsections (a), (b), and (c) quite evidently refer to, as insured parties, McGovern, its officers, employees, or other persons in some way using its vehicle with permission. It is under subsection (d) of this so-called Omnibus clause that LILCO seeks the mantle of being an unnamed 'insured'. LILCO believes it is an 'organization' with potential liability to Zirk's estate 'because of' McGovern's employees' acts or omissions in handling the truck.

III. Requirement of Some Reasonable Relationship To Vehicle Use To Be An 'Insured'

A. Ancillary Policy Language

An insurance policy, like a contract, must be read and construed in its entirety. Murray Oil Products, Inc. v. Royal Exchange Assur. Co., 21 N.Y.2d 440, 288 N.Y.S.2d 618, 235 N.E.2d 762; F. S. Royster Guano Co. v. Globe & Rutgers Fire Ins. Co., 252 N.Y. 75, 168 N.E. 834. The meaning of one clause may be sharpened by reference to another. Precisely that relation exists here in Hartford's policy between the broad omnibus clause and other integrated provisions that limit its scope. See, Allstate Ins. Co. v. General Fire and Casualty Co., 348 F.Supp. 682, 685 (E.D.Pa.1972).

Under Section I of the policy, the carrier agrees to pay:

'. . . on behalf of the Insured all such sums which the Insured shall become obligated to pay as damages . . . CAUSED BY AN OCCURRENCE AND ARISING OUT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MAINTENANCE OR USE, INCLUDING LOADING AND UNLOADING OF ANY AUTOMOBILE . . .'. (Capitalization supplied for emphasis).

'Automobile' is defined in the general policy provisions of the policy to mean a 'land motor vehicle, trailer or semi-trailer designed for travel on public roads (including any machinery or apparatus attached thereto), but does not include Mobile equipment'. (Emphasis in original).

The upshot of these various provisions is to link the definition of 'insured' directly to some use, however construed, of the truck. An insured is someone whose liability derives from injuries caused by his permitted, condoned, or anticipated use of the truck, or his connection with such a user. See, Wachstein v. General Accident Fire & Life Assur. Corp., 36 A.D.2d 963, 321 N.Y.S.2d 642. The liability exposure of the insured must come about because of some occurrence emanating from his participation or sharing in the use of the vehicle. The policy, appropriately entitled, 'Comprehensive Automobile Liability Insurance,' is replete with italicized emphasis upon the 'insured' and the 'automobile;' it is inextricably wedded to the covered vehicle. See, Crowley's Milk Co. v. American Mut. Liab. Ins. Co., 313 F.Supp. 502 (E.D.N.Y.1969), affd. 426 F.2d 752 (2d Cir. 1970).

B. 'Loading' Clause Inapplicable

There is a 'complete loading doctrine' (sometimes applicable in determining the scope of auto liability insured coverage), which holds that reasonable activities preliminary and subsequent to loading and unloading are covered vehicle uses. Wagman v. American Fidelity Casualty & Guaranty Co., 304 N.Y. 490, 109 N.E.2d 592; Kings County Trust Co. v. Tudor Constr. Corp., 28 A.D.2d 853, 281 N.Y.S.2d 642. However, even where that doctrine is applicable, independent acts remote or unrelated to loading and unloading are not covered. Drennan v. Great American Ins. Co., 27 A.D.2d 641, 275 N.Y.S.2d 409.

Here, the pertinent claimed faulty acts by LILCO, negligent maintenance and control of the high tension wires, are remote and unrelated to the named insured's loading operation, except in temporal occurrence alone. LILCO is in no way part of the loading process. That both claimed acts of negligence, by LILCO and by McGovern, may have coincided in time happenstance does not establish the critical functional nexus to use and loading of the truck so as to bring LILCO's possible contributive causation within those activities covered by McGovern's policy. See, Hertz Corp. v. Bellin, 28 A.D.2d 1101, 284 N.Y.S.2d 140, affd. 22 N.Y.2d 736, 292 N.Y.S.2d 117, 239 N.E.2d 211; Nicollet Properties, Inc. v. St. Paul Mercury Ins. Co., 271 Minn. 65, 135 N.W.2d 127.

Finally, and conclusively as to loading, Section II(c) restricts the insured loader or unloader to a lessee, borrower, or employee of the named insured, lessee or borrower. LILCO plainly is none of these.

C. 'Because Of'?

LILCO rests its case on a broad construction of the words in Section II(d), 'liability because of acts or omissions of an insured under (a), (b) or (c) above'. It contends that any organization is insured with respect to its liability occasioned Because of acts or omissions of an insured. Says LILCO, in effect, 'McGovern's employee, an insured drove the truck into the wires, and therefore his act led in sequence to the accident and resulting claim against LILCO'. This position is that 'but for' McGovern's acts, there would have been no loading, no accident, no LILCO liability.

However, the Court believes that there is a more circumscribed meaning to 'because of' than merely being a sequential link in the chain of events. The words imply a relationship connecting the culpable acts of persons using the vehicle to liability of another, who then becomes an 'insured'. The phrase appears to include persons or organizations held in by way of vicarious liability for derelictions of McGovern, its employees, or a consensual user of the vehicle.

D. The Principle of Use Relationship: Analysis

In essence, the terms of the comprehensive liability policy protect McGovern and those with whom it has some continuing relationship, through employment, vehicle lending,...