Umbarger v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 03 April 1934 |
| Docket Number | 42356 |
| Citation | 254 N.W. 87,218 Iowa 203 |
| Parties | MABEL UMBARGER, Appellee, v. STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Sac District Court.--P. J. KLINKER, Judge.
This is an action at law upon a judgment previously obtained by the plaintiff against one Kilbourn on account of damages received in an automobile accident while a guest of said Kilbourn. Kilbourn held a policy of accident insurance in the defendant company. Judgment was entered in the court below in this case in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendant, and the defendant appeals.
Affirmed.
Malcolm Currie, for appellant.
J. B Tourgee, and Salinger, Reynolds & Meyers, for appellee.
The accident resulting in the injuries to appellee for which damages were sought in the original action against Kilbourn occurred on September 7, 1931. With the details of this accident, the court is not now concerned. Judgment was obtained by appellee against Kilbourn for $ 2,550.30 on March 22, 1932. Execution having been returned unsatisfied, this action was commenced against appellant. The policy issued to Kilbourn by appellant, which is an Illinois company, is dated August 5, 1931. The sole defense urged in this action is based upon a provision of the policy which covers liability in case of "bodily injury and/or death suffered or alleged to have been suffered by any person, other than the Assured of the same household as the Assured or those in the service or employment of the Assured." The case was submitted to the court without a jury upon an agreed statement of facts.
The assured, Kilbourn, a man fifty years of age, was engaged in selling life insurance in the vicinity of Odeboldt, Iowa, for the New York Life Insurance Company. He called at the home of appellee, who resided with her husband and other members of her family on a farm near that place. The negotiations between Kilbourn and the Umbargers resulted in the issuance of a policy upon the lives of certain members of the Umbarger family. Kilbourn was rooming in a residence in Odebolt under circumstances not entirely satisfactory to him. Appellee had an unused room in her home which, as a part of the negotiations for a policy of life insurance, was rented to Kilbourn for $ 10 per month, with the understanding that the rent would be applied to the payment of the premium on the life policy referred to. The room rented by Kilbourn was on the second floor, but it was agreed that he might have space in a room on the first floor for certain purposes. Kilbourn moved into the room rented of the Umbargers about October 1, 1930, where he continued to reside until June of the following year. Kilbourn was married, and his family, consisting of his wife and two daughters, resided in Illinois. About the month of July, he tentatively decided to remove his family to Odebolt, but this was abandoned, and he returned for a time to the Umbarger home, where he lived under the arrangements already stated. In addition to the right to occupy the room on the second floor and a room on the first floor for certain purposes, appellee agreed to furnish Kilbourn meals at 25 cents each. This included meals to guests of Kilbourn upon specified conditions. He also was accorded the right to use the telephone upon condition that he pay all telephone charges for such service.
It is the contention of appellant that the exception contained in the policy and which is quoted above exempted appellant from liability for the injuries suffered by appellee upon the ground that she was a member of the same household as Kilbourn. Necessarily, this contention involves the interpretation and construction of the provision of the policy in question. Was appellee a member of the some household as Kilbourn? This is the ultimate question presented for decision.
Kilbourn, as the head of his own family, was a member of that household. If the foregoing statement be accurate, then the policy excepted injuries to Kilbourn, his wife, and the members of his immediate household. It may be assumed that W. L. Umbarger, the husband of appellee, was the head of the household of which she was a member. She was not upon any conceivable theory a member of the household of Kilbourn, so far as that term comprehends his own household and family. The policy was issued prior to the date on which Kilbourn secured a room in the home of appellee in which to live. The purpose of the provision of the policy obviously was to relieve the company from any possibility or danger of collusion between the members of the household of which Kilbourn was a member and to obviate the natural impulse of one member of such family in case of injury to another to favor such injured member. The question is not, what did the insurer intend or mean by the clause in question? but what did the assured, as a reasonable person, understand the policy to mean? Watson v. Firemen's Ins. Co., 83 N.H. 200, 140 A. 169; Cartier v. Lumbermen's Mut. Casualty Co., 84 N.H. 526, 153 A. 6, 7. In the course of the opinion of the court in the case last cited, we find the following language:
If the household referred to in the policy is synonymous with the family of the assured, it would seem quite conclusively to be limited to such household. The word "household" has been variously defined, depending to some extent upon the connection or relationship in which it is used. Sullivan v. Walburn, 154 A. 617, 9 N.J. Misc. 280; Mueller Furnace Co. v. Dreibelbis (Mo. App.) 229 S.W. 240; Alsup v. Jordan, 69 Tex. 300, 6 S.W. 831, 5 Am. St. Rep. 53; Buckley v. Porter, 160 Miss. 98, 133 So. 215; Pippin and Wife v. Jones and Company, 52 Ala. 161; Sauriolle v. O'Gorman, 86 N.H. 39, 163 A. 717; Rydstrom v. Queen Ins. Co., 137 Md. 349, 112 A. 586, 14 A. L. R. 212; Rogers v. Kuhnreich, 247 Mich. 204, 225 N.W. 622, 624; Ferbrache v. Grand Lodge, 81 Mo.App. 268.
The language of the contract, or of the statutes, involved in each of the cited cases no doubt influenced the construction adopted by the respective courts. The precise question here presented has not previously been before this court.
As ordinarily understood, a household consists...
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