Roach v. Churchman

• Decision Date: 18 September 1970
• Docket Number: No. 19923,19945,19924,19946.,19923
• Citation: 431 F.2d 849
• Parties: E. Roberta ROACH, Administratrix of the Estate of John Hubert Roach, Deceased, (Plaintiff)-Appellant, v. John P. CHURCHMAN, Administrator of the Estate of Merle Ravenstein, (Defendant)-Appellant, v. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellee, v. E. Roberta ROACH, Administratrix of the Estate of John Hubert Roach, Deceased; The Estate of Merle Ravenstein, Deceased; and John P. Churchman, Administrator of said Estate, Appellants, and Rose Ravenstein.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

431 F.2d 849 (1970)

E. Roberta ROACH, Administratrix of the Estate of John Hubert Roach, Deceased, (Plaintiff)-Appellant, v. John P. CHURCHMAN, Administrator of the Estate of Merle Ravenstein, (Defendant)-Appellant, v. AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee.

AMERICAN HOME ASSURANCE COMPANY, a Corporation, Appellee, v. E. Roberta ROACH, Administratrix of the Estate of John Hubert Roach, Deceased; The Estate of Merle Ravenstein, Deceased; and John P. Churchman, Administrator of said Estate, Appellants, and Rose Ravenstein.

Nos. 19923, 19924, 19945, 19946.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

September 18, 1970.

J. Patrick Green, Omaha, Neb., for appellant, E. Roberta Roach, and others and filed brief; John P. Miller, Omaha, Neb.; David McCann, Council Bluffs, Iowa, Tom H. Davis, Austin, Tex., and John P. Churchman, Council Bluffs, Iowa, were on the brief with Mr. Green.

William L. Morrow, Austin, Tex., for appellant, E. Roberta Roach; brief was filed by John P. Miller, Omaha, Neb., David McCann, Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Tom H. Davis, Austin, Tex.

John M. Peters, Council Bluffs, Iowa, for appellee, and filed brief.

Before MEHAFFY and BRIGHT, Circuit Judges, and HARPER, Chief District Judge.

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge.

Merle Ravenstein, the insured, piloted a single-engine airplane which crashed during the night of August 20-21, 1966, causing his own death and that of his passenger, John H. Roach. Ravenstein's final ill-fated flight commenced at St. Joseph, Missouri, at 11:23 p. m., and ended at approximately 12:15 a. m. when the plane crashed near Glenwood, Iowa, enroute to Omaha, Nebraska. According to the records kept in his pilot log book, Ravenstein had failed to practice night landings and take-offs within ninety days of the fatal flight. Federal Aviation Administration¹ regulations prohibit a pilot from carrying passengers at night without such recent night flying experience. The insurer, American Home Assurance Company, instituted a declaratory judgment action seeking the court's determination of no liability for this accident under an aviation insurance policy which protected Ravenstein against liability claims. The insurer contends that Ravenstein's violation of this night flight regulation relating to aircraft passengers served to negate coverage under exclusions contained in the policy. The trial court, in an unpublished opinion, agreed with the insurer and entered a judgment declaring the policy inapplicable to this accident. The defendants in the declaratory judgment action, John Churchman as administrator of the pilot's estate, and the passenger's widow, E. Roberta Roach, as administratrix, appeal.² For reasons stated below, we reverse and hold the pertinent exclusionary clauses inapplicable in this case.

The insurance policy in effect at the time of the accident afforded, among other things, protection to the named insured, Merle Ravenstein, and his wife Rose for bodily injury or death claims (including passengers) "caused by an occurrence and arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the aircraft." It also contained the following exclusions pertinent to this case:

This policy does not apply:

* * * * * *

3. while, with the knowledge and consent of an insured —

(a) the aircraft is being operated by an approved pilot who commences a flight in violation of the terms and limitations of his Federal Aviation Agency Pilot Certificate or Medical Certificate;

(b) the aircraft is being used for any unlawful purpose. * * (Emphasis added.)

The insurer, as plaintiff, presented the following few facts to the trial court in support of its complaint. Ravenstein's flight records contain entries showing that he performed "six night touch & go landings 4-15-66." In a separate aircraft log book, Ravenstein, under the same date, entered a notation that "new landing lights worked good." These records disclose no additional night flying from April 15, 1966, to the final entry dated August 11, 1966. Ravenstein's widow testified that her late husband had disliked night flying, had accurately kept flight records and to the best of her knowledge had not participated in flying after dark between April 15, 1966, and the date of the fatal flight, a period spanning 127 days.

The specific FAA regulation relied upon by the insurer to deny coverage under the policy exclusion reads:

§ 61.47 Recent flight experience.

* * * * * *

(b) Night experience. No person may act as pilot in command of an aircraft carrying passengers during the period beginning 1 hour after sunset and ending 1 hour before sunrise (as published in the American Air Almanac) unless, within the preceding 90 days, he has made at least five takeoffs and five landings to a full stop during that period of the day. This paragraph does not apply to operations requiring an airline transport pilot certificate. 14 C.F.R. § 61.47(b) (1970 edition).

The district court specifically found that the pilot violated this regulation. Reasoning that a pilot's certificate logically incorporates all FAA regulations pertaining thereto, the court concluded that Ravenstein had commenced his flight in violation of the "terms and limitations of his * * * Pilot Certificate" and had used the aircraft for an "unlawful purpose" within the language of the policy exclusions.

In our view, the trial court gave these questioned exclusionary provisions an overbroad construction contrary to the well-settled general rule that exceptions, limitations and exclusions to insuring agreements require a narrow construction on the theory that the insurer, having affirmatively expressed coverage through broad promises, assumes a duty to define any limitations upon that coverage in clear and explicit terms. This court follows that rule, Aetna Casualty and Surety Company v. Stover, 327 F.2d 288 (1964); Insurance Company of North America v. General Aviation Supply Co., 283 F.2d 590 (1960); Great American Indem. Co. of New York v. Saltzman, 213 F.2d 743 (1954), as do the courts of Iowa whose law governs this diversity action, General Casualty Company of Wisconsin v. Hines, Iowa, 156 N.W.2d 118, 122 (1968); Wilson v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, 256 Iowa 844, 128 N.W.2d 218, 220 (1964); Mallinger v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, 253 Iowa 222, 111 N.W.2d 647 (1961); Olson v. Southern Surety Co., 201 Iowa 1334, 208 N.W. 213, 215-216 (1926). See generally, 13 J. Appleman, Insurance Law and Practice § 7387 (Supp.1970).

We here face the question of whether the exclusionary clauses, reasonably construed, incorporate the specific terms of FAA Regulation § 61.47(b). The parties concede that Ravenstein possessed a current private pilot's license entitling him to fly a single-engine land airplane. Neither party introduced the pilot's certificate itself into evidence, but other data made part of the record indicate that Ravenstein possessed a current certificate on the date of the accident. The ordinary reading of the policy phrase "terms and limitations of his Federal Aviation Pilot Certificate or Medical Certificate" reasonably infers the existence of limitations upon either certificate. Indeed, the governing statute expressly provides for limitations.³

Consideration of the medical certificate limitations aside, the FAA regulations permit the Federal Aviation Administration to issue student, private and commercial pilot certificates plus those for airline transport pilots, special purpose pilots and flight instructors. 14 C.F.R. § 61.3. A private pilot's certificate must bear a category rating as airplane, rotor-craft, glider, or lighter-than-air and a class rating as single-engine land, multi-engine land, single-engine sea, or multi-engine sea. 14 C.F.R. § 61.15. A special section, 14 C.F.R. § 61.16, entitled General limitations, states that no person may act as pilot in command of a small aircraft carrying another person or operating for compensation or hire unless he holds a category and class rating for that aircraft.

Under the statutes and regulations, Ravenstein possessed a certificate entitling him to fly the aircraft which crashed. Regulation § 61.47 does not bar a pilot without recent night flight experience from flying an airplane, but simply prohibits his carrying a passenger on a night flight. We construe this regulation as enunciating an operating safety rule, but not rising to the level of a "term, condition or limitation" upon his FAA pilot certificate as used in 49 U.S.C. § 1422 or correspondingly in the policy exclusion.

The introductory material of Part 61 of the FAA regulations entitled "Certification: Pilots and Flight Instructors" differentiates between regulations enunciating limitations upon the pilot's certificate and those specifying details concerning flights. It reads:

§ 61.1 Applicability.

This part prescribes the requirements for issuing the following certificates and ratings, the conditions under which those certificates or ratings are necessary, and the general operating rules for the holders of those certificates and ratings .

Though Ravenstein should not have been carrying a passenger at the time of the accident, his violation of the regulation does not come within the ambit of exclusion 3(a) of his aviation policy. While the pilot's act of carrying a passenger at night in apparent contravention of § 61.47 may have been negligent or even intentional, it did not violate any express term of his pilot's certificate. If the insurer desired to exclude this particular risk, it should have defined more explicitly the risks for which it declined coverage.⁴

For example, in Globe Indemnity Company v. Hansen, 231 F.2d 895 (8th Cir. 1956), the policy excluded coverage for "violation of any governmental regulation * * * applying to aerobatics. * * *"; in Bruce v. Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Company, 222 F.2d 642 (4th Cir. 1955), the insurer specifically excluded liability with respect to bodily injury sustained by any...