Wetherill v. The Williamsburgh City Fire Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 24 February 1915
• Docket Number: 184-1914
• Citation: 60 Pa.Super. 37
• Parties: Wetherill v. The Williamsburgh City Fire Insurance Company, Appellant
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

60 Pa.Super. 37

Wetherill v. The Williamsburgh City Fire Insurance Company, Appellant

No. 184-1914

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

February 24, 1915

Argued October 22, 1914

Appeal by defendant, from judgment of Municipal Court March T. 1914, No. 460, for plaintiff on case tried by the court without a jury in suit of John Price Wetherill, Jr., et al trading as Gibbons-Wetherill Service Co., v. The Williamsburgh City Fire Ins. Company.

Assumpsit on a policy of automobile insurance. Before Bonniwell, J.

From the record it appeared that the defendant issued an automobile policy in the amount of $ 600 to the plaintiffs covering a Ford automobile.

The circumstances of the accident are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.

The court entered judgment for plaintiff for $ 174.25. Defendant appealed.

Error assigned was the judgment of the court.

F. R Shattuck, for appellant, cited: Dougherty v. Ins. Co. of North America, 19 Pa. Dist. 547.

S. J Henderson, for appellee, cited: Bingell v. Royal Ins. Co., 240 Pa. 412; Harris v. American Casualty Co., 83 N.J. 641.

Before Rice, P. J., Orlady, Head, Kephart and Trexler, JJ.

OPINION

KEPHART, J.

The plaintiffs owned an automobile and the chauffeur was taking it into a garage for the purpose of having some repairs made. He took the car inside the building a distance of thirty to thirty-five feet from the entrance, when he stopped to speak to the foreman. The car was closed and it was somewhat dark. Intending to go to the second story, he backed the car into the open area of an elevator shaft and the car fell to the ground floor below. The right of the plaintiffs to recover damages to the automobile from this fall depends upon the construction of the rider, which was attached to the original policy of insurance. It reads as follows:

" collision 'damage sustained' clause

" In consideration of $ 20.00, Additional Premium, this policy is hereby extended to cover damages to the automobile and equipment herein insured caused by collision with any other vehicle or with any animal or object, or any obstacle placed as a barrier; or in entering or leaving any building adjacent to any roadway.

" But nothing in this clause shall be held as making this company liable for damages caused by striking any portion of the gutter, roadbed or ditch, or by striking street or steam railroad rails or ties, or by upset unless the upset be caused by such a collision as is insured against hereunder; or for loss or damage by detention or loss of use."

The defense is made that the damage was not covered by the terms of the policy or its reasonable intendment, as the accident was not the result of a collision, and that it occurred inside of a building. In considering this rider, effect must be given to the words in their ordinary and accepted meaning when used independently, also their intended meaning when used in connection with a writing, even if such intended meaning may do violence to the literal definition of the word as used independently. In the policy we have the word " object," which has been defined as " anything, whether concrete or imaginary, that may be perceived and apprehended by the mind, that of which the understanding has knowledge." Vehicle, animal, obstacle and the earth are physical objects. Collision has been defined as a violent contact, a striking together. In the second paragraph of this rider it speaks of the company not being liable for damage caused by striking any portion of the gutter, etc. The policy nowhere refers to the company being liable for " striking" anything, unless " collision" and " striking" were used synonymously. This is the sense in which they were intended to be used. " Striking" is the defendant's own definition of the word " collision." There is no ambiguity in the contract, nor is there a " forced, strained, unusual or unnatural" construction of the word " collision," as aided by the policy, in holding that it covered all damages caused by striking an object. It surely cannot be urged that when a body is hurled...