A. M. Larson Co. v. Lawlor Ins. Agency
| Decision Date | 17 May 1966 |
| Citation | 153 Conn. 618,220 A.2d 32 |
| Parties | The A. M. LARSON COMPANY, Inc. v. LAWLOR INSURANCE AGENCY, Inc., et al. |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Robert B. Snow, Jr., New Haven, with whom, on the brief, was William J. Egan, Hartford, for appellant (defendant American Guarantee & Liability Ins. Co.).
Walter M. Pickett, Jr., Waterbury, for appellee (plaintiff).
Before KING, C.J., and MURPHY, ALCORN, SHANNON and HOUSE, JJ.
During the trial the plaintiff dropped the named defendant as a party, and judgment was rendered only against the defendant American Guarantee and Liability Insurance Company, hereinafter referred to as the insurer. In this appeal the insurer has raised a number of claims of error, one of which was that under the terms of a so-called 'hoisting endorsement' there was no coverage of the loss forming the subject matter of this action.
The plaintiff, a trucking concern, procured from the insurer a policy of insurance commonly known as a motor truck cargo insurance policy. Basically, the policy covered the plaintiff's liability as a carrier, bailee or warehouseman for loss on shipments of general merchandise and household and office furniture while they were loaded for shipment and in transit on vehicles owned or operated by the plaintiff. The plaintiff also procured a 'hoisting endorsement.' The proper interpretation of the coverage provided by this endorsement, as applied to the facts of this case, forms the basic controversy in this appeal.
The plaintiff's claim of coverage is principally based on the italicized portion of the endorsement which is quoted as follows:
The plaintiff undertook to relocate an overhead traveling crane, consisting of a cab and two beams, all located inside of a building of American Anaconda Brass Company, hereinafter referred to as American, in Waterbury. Each beam weighed seven to eight tons, and the crane was eighty feet long. The plaintiff intended to lower the crane, rotate it 180 degrees, and hoist it back into position. The entire operation was intended to be, and was, carried on within the building belonging to American.
In the course of lowering the cab of the crane, the plaintiff's equipment failed, and the load came down with a crash, damaging not only the load but certain property in its path. The insurer, under a property damage policy which it had also issued, paid the loss arising from the damage to the property injured by the falling load. The present case is concerned solely with the insurer's liability for the damage to the cab of the crane itself, which was not being loaded on or unloaded from a transporting motor truck.
The plaintiff bases its claim of coverage largely on the ground that at the time of the accident the damaged property was 'being moved in or out of buildings.' In so claiming, the plaintiff is forced to, and does, construe the quoted phrase as referring to a static place of operations, that is, inside of, or outside of, buildings. Such a construction is required if the plaintiff is to prevail, since admittedly the entire moving operation was intended to and did, take place wholly within American's building. Nothing had been...
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