Wolfe, T. v. Ross, R. ( 2015 )

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2015 PA Super 110THERESA M. WOLFE, ADMINISTRATRIX IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
OF THE ESTATE OF KEVIN T. WOLFE, PENNSYLVANIA
Appellant
v.
ROBERT ROSS,
Appellee
STATE FARM FIRE AND CASUALTY
COMPANY,
Appellee No. 1048 WDA 2012
Appeal from the Order Entered on June 21, 2012
In the Court of Common Pleas of Butler County
Civil Division at No.: 10-30444
BEFORE: FORD ELLIOTT, P.J.E., BENDER, P.J.E., BOWES, J., SHOGAN, J.,
ALLEN, J., OTT, J., WECHT, J., STABILE, J., and JENKINS, J.
DISSENTING OPINION BY WECHT, J.: FILED MAY 07, 2015
I have the utmost respect for the learned Majority’s careful review and
application of this Court’s three-judge-panel decision in Wilcha v.
Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Co., 887 A.2d 1254 (Pa. Super.
2005). However, after careful consideration, I am unable to join the
Majority’s analysis or conclusion.
I would find that Wilcha is distinguishable from the instant matter.
This case’s resolution instead should follow our decision in Eichelberger v.
Warner, 434 A.2d 747, 750-51 (Pa. Super. 1981), and the principles and
authorities we relied upon therein.
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Today’s Majority expands Wilcha’s application to new circumstances;
circumstances that, in my view, warrant a different result. In so doing, the
Majority calls into question this Court’s more deeply-rooted precedent
embodied by Eichelberger. I do not share the Majority’s skepticism
regarding our reasoning in Eichelberger. It is possible to harmonize
Pennsylvania’s prior cases concerning vehicle exclusion clauses in
homeowner’s insurance policies more effectively than does the Majority.
Were my views to prevail, we would preserve more fully Pennsylvania’s
enduring commitment to construe ambiguous insurance policy provisions in
favor of coverage for the insured. Thus, I respectfully dissent.
The fact pattern and procedural history in this case are
straightforward. Theresa Wolfe alleged in the underlying action that, as a
direct and proximate result of Robert Ross’s provision of alcohol to Wolfe’s
son (“Decedent”), Decedent departed on a dirt bike owned by Ross’s son,
lost control of the bike, and struck a fixed object, suffering fatal injuries.
See Maj. Op. at 2.1 Before trial, Wolfe and Ross entered into a consent
judgment for $200,000, pursuant to which Ross assigned to Wolfe his rights
under a homeowner’s policy issued by State Farm, which had denied any
duty to defend or indemnify under the policy’s motor vehicle exclusion.
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1
The Majority aptly notes that “[a]ll allegations against [Ross] sounded
in negligence and arose from the furnishing of alcohol to the minor.” Maj.
Op. at 2.
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Id. at 3. Thereafter, State Farm waived its right to litigate whether the
insured furnished alcohol and whether the alcohol was a legal cause of
Decedent’s harm; State Farm stipulated that it would remit the policy limits
of $100,000 if the court found as a matter of law that it was obligated to
provide coverage for Wolfe’s claims.
I need not restate in detail the relevant motor vehicle exclusion at
issue in this appeal, except to note that, as in most of the cases discussed
below, the crux of the matter lies in the meaning of the phrase “arising out
of the ownership, maintenance, use, loading or unloading of . . . a motor
vehicle owned or operated by or rented or loaned to any insured.” See id.
at 6-7 (reproducing the relevant policy provisions in full).2 Accordingly, I
turn directly to my reasons for departing from the learned Majority’s
analysis.
In Wilcha, the case that, for the parties and the Majority, is the
elephant in the room, a driver brought negligent entrustment claims against
the parents of a child with whom the driver collided while the child was
operating a motor bike. Faced with a motor vehicle exclusion in their
homeowner’s policy akin to the exclusion in this case, the parents
maintained nonetheless that claims of negligent entrustment and negligent
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2
Unless otherwise noted, the reader may assume that all motor vehicle
exclusions addressed in this dissent are, for all relevant purposes, identical
in language and scope to the motor vehicle exclusion at issue in this case.
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supervision existed independently of the child’s use of the motor bike such
that the insurer had a duty to defend against the claims.
The Majority’s discussion of Wilcha warrants reproduction:
[This Court in Wilcha] relied upon Pulleyn v. Cavalier
Insurance Corp., 505 A.2d 1016, 1020 (Pa. Super. 1986) (en
banc), where we held that the insurer had no duty to defend a
negligent entrustment claim against an employer under a
casualty policy [that] contained an exclusion for personal injury
arising from maintenance or use of an automobile operated by
an employee in the course of his employment. In Pulleyn, we
reasoned that it was not the negligent entrustment of the vehicle
that caused the plaintiff’s injuries, but rather the use of the
vehicle by the employee that caused the harm.
This distinction was also critical in Motorists Mutual Insurance
Co. v. Kulp, 688 F.Supp. 1033 (E.D.Pa. 1988), a decision the
Wilcha Court found to be persuasive. In that case, a minor
sustained injury while riding a mini-bike furnished by his aunt
and uncle on [an] adjacent property. His parents asserted
claims of negligent supervision and entrustment against the aunt
and uncle, and they in turn submitted the claims to their
homeowner’s carrier. The homeowner’s policy contained a
motor vehicle exclusion that was virtually identical to the one at
issue herein. The insurer filed a declaratory judgment action to
determine whether the policy provided coverage for the claims.
The district court, citing Pulleyn, supra, held that the motor
vehicle exclusion applied and precluded coverage as it was the
use of the bike that triggered the insureds’ alleged liability, not
their negligent supervision or entrustment. In Wilcha, we called
this reasoning “sound” and “consistent with more recent
Pennsylvania jurisprudence.” Wilcha, 887 A.2d at 1264.
This Court ultimately concluded in Wilcha that the homeowner’s
insurer had no duty to defend the Wilchas on claims for
negligent supervision and negligent entrustment. We found no
ambiguity in the exclusionary language. Since the minor’s
injuries arose from use of the dirt bike, the motor vehicle
exclusion was applicable.
Maj. Op. at 12-13 (citations modified).
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The Majority next discusses at length an unpublished federal opinion in
Allstate Property and Casualty Co. v. Filachek, Civ. No. 10-3634, 2011
WL 2111219 (E.D.Pa. May 25, 2011) (unpublished). See Maj. Op. at 14-16.
In that case, which, like Kulp, has no more than persuasive value for this
Court,3 the defendant insured, Filachek, spent an evening drinking with his
friend Maher, also a named defendant, at several bars. At the last bar they
visited, the two men remained until closing. While there, Maher “pounded
shots of liquor” in Filachek’s presence. Filacheck, 2011 WL 2111219, at *1.
When the bar closed, Filachek and Maher decided to drive to Atlantic City,
with Maher behind the wheel and Filachek in the passenger’s seat. Maher,
legally drunk by a considerable margin, eventually collided with a car driven
by Kap when Maher was traveling at over 100 miles per hour. Kap was
killed. Id. at *1.
The plaintiff survivor brought suit against the above-named
defendants. She alleged that Filachek was liable, inter alia, because he
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3
This principle applies regardless of whether the case was published.
See generally Pantelis v. Erie Ins. Exch., 890 A.2d 1063, 1066 n.3
(Pa. Super. 2006); Roman Mosaic & Tile Co. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co.,
704 A.2d 655, 670 & n.3 (Pa. Super. 1997) (adopting the reasoning of the
Western District of Arkansas district court’s published opinion and rejecting
the appellants’ reliance upon contrary unpublished decisions of a the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania district court). However, that the federal district
court declined to publish its decision arguably reduces that decision’s value
still further. Cf. Ray v. Dep’t of Corrs., No. 453 M.D. 2007, 2008 WL
9405086, at *2 n.4 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2008) (unpublished) (rejecting petitioner’s
reliance upon unpublished federal decisions, noting that the Commonwealth
Court may not even cite its own unpublished decisions).
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provided alcohol to Maher and encouraged him to drink excessively, did not
investigate Maher’s fitness to drive, failed to obtain alternative
transportation, failed to ensure that Maher operated the vehicle safely, and
failed to take over driving when it became clear that Maher was not able to
operate the vehicle safely. Id.Filachek’s insurer assumed his defense under a homeowner’s policy,
but filed a declaratory judgment action contesting its duty to defend on the
basis of the policy’s motor vehicle exclusion. Notably, the insurer also relied
upon a separate policy provision that excluded coverage for “the negligent
supervision by any insured person of any person.” Id. at *2 (quoting the
policy).
Citing a non-precedential Third Circuit decision and this Court’s
decision in Pulleyn, the district court found that both exclusions
unambiguously applied to bar coverage. Id. at *3 (citing Countryway Ins.
Co. v. Slaugenhop, 360 Fed. App’x 348 (3d Cir. 2010)). Thus, if Filachek
was liable, “such liability [was] undeniably intertwined with Maher’s use of
the vehicle that actually gave rise to the injury. The vehicle Maher drove
was both the instrumentality of the injury and a necessary element
in [the plaintiff’s] theories of liability against both men.” Id. at *4
(emphasis added). Consequently, as in Wilcha, the underlying liability
claim was defined by reference to the stewardship of the driver in relation to
the vehicle’s use. Put simply, what was at issue was not Filachek’s
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supervision of Maher’s drinking, as such, but rather his responsibilities as
defined by encouraging or permitting Maher to drive while intoxicated.4
In Eichelberger, which I find in principle more on point with the
instant case despite its divergent fact pattern, Herby Eichelberger, one of
several parties injured in a car accident, sued Vivian Warner and the
administrator of the estate of Dava Rice, Warner and Rice being the two
drivers involved in the accident. The jury found in favor of Eichelberger
against both defendants. Warner settled the verdict with Eichelberger in
return for an assignment of judgment. Then, Warner filed a praecipe for a
writ of execution against Rice’s homeowner’s and auto insurance policies,
issued respectively by Valley Mutual and Federal Kemper. The trial court
granted summary judgment in favor of Warner and against Valley Mutual
and Federal Kemper. At issue in the subsequent cross-appeals to this Court
was whether either or both policies were obligated to cover Rice. See 434
A.2d at 748.
The facts in Eichelberger were as follows: Rice was driving her car,
with her sister in the passenger seat, when the car stopped running. Rice
parked the car as close to the guard rail as possible, but could not remove
the car entirely from the lane of travel. Rice and her sister then traveled on
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4
Notably, in Filachek, rather than rely exclusively upon the policy’s
motor vehicle exclusion, the district court ruled in the alternative that
coverage was precluded by the policy provision excluding coverage for
“negligent supervision,” which has no analog in the instant case.
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foot to obtain gasoline, in hopes that the car merely had run out of fuel.
When they returned with the gas, two good Samaritans, including Herby
Eichelberger, stopped to assist. While the Samaritans prepared to fuel the
vehicle, Rice was standing “slightly on the highway behind her vehicle with
her back to oncoming . . . traffic.” Id. at 749. Just then, Warner was
approaching in the partially obstructed lane. As Warner neared the disabled
vehicle, Rice stepped backward into Warner’s path. Warner struck Rice, lost
control of her car, and ran into the rear of Rice’s vehicle, killing Rice and
injuring both Samaritans. A jury found that Warner and Rice both had been
negligent. Id. at 748-49.
Because our Supreme Court previously had held in Morris v.
American Liability and Surety Co., 185 A. 201 (Pa. 1936), that
“‘maintenance’ as used in the context of an automobile insurance policy
includes all acts [that] come within the ordinary scope and meaning of the
word,” we found it “inescapable that the replacement of fuel [that] has been
exhausted with use[,] and without which a motor vehicle is inoperative, is a
species of maintenance.” Eichelberger, 434 A.2d at 750 (quoting State
Farm Mut. Ins. Co. v. Pan Am. Ins. Co., 437 S.W.2d 542, 545 (Tex.
1969)). Notwithstanding that Rice had been deemed negligent in stepping
into Warner’s path, we found that Rice’s auto insurance policy was obligated
to provide coverage because “a cause and result relationship is enough to
satisfy the ‘arising out of’ provision of an automobile insurance policy.” Id.-8-
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Rice’s negligent act was not “so remote from the ownership, maintenance or
use of her vehicle as to be unconnected with them.” Id.Turning to Rice’s homeowner’s policy, we noted that, as in the case
sub judice, it excluded coverage for “bodily injury or property damage
arising out of the ownership, maintenance, operation, use, loading or
unloading of . . . any motor vehicle owned or operated by or rented or
loaned to any insured.” Id. Our explanation as to why this deployment of
materially identical language—i.e., “arising out of”—led to different results
vis-à-vis the auto and insurance policies is instructive:
[C]overage clauses are interpreted broadly so as to afford the
greatest possible protection to the insured. Mohn v. Am. Cas.
Co. of Reading, 326 A.2d 346 (Pa. 1974); Penn-Air Inc. v.
Indem. Ins. Co. of N. Am., 269 A.2d 19 (Pa. 1970); Miller v.
Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 362 A.2d 1017 (Pa. Super. 1976)
(en banc); Celley v. Mut. Benefit Health & Accident Ass’n,
324 A.2d 430 (Pa. Super. 1974) (en banc). These rules of
construction are necessary because, as this [C]ourt has noted,
insurance policies are in essence contracts of adhesion. Ranieli
v. Mut. Life Ins. Co. of Am., 413 A.2d 3965
(Pa. Super. 1979).[ ] Because of these canons of construction,
it must be emphasized that a homeowner’s policy and an
automobile policy are not necessarily mutually exclusive. See
State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co. v. Partridge, 514 P.2d 123(Cal. 1973) (even though inclusionary clause of homeowner’s
policies and exclusionary clause of automobile insurance policies
held by the insured had both been issued by the same insurer
and contained nearly identical language, such policies were held
not to be mutually exclusive)[.] As one treatise states:
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5
See also Adamitis v. Erie Ins. Exch., 54 A.3d 371, 380 (Pa. Super.
2012) (noting that ambiguous provisions should be interpreted in favor of
the insured because “the insurer drafts the policy[] and controls coverage”).
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(S)ome courts and writers have confused further the
problem of the use of the automobile with the exclusionary
clauses of the homeowner personal comprehensive liability
and general liability policies. They have focused attention
on the exclusions rather than on the insuring agreements.
The insuring agreements of the policies are not the same.
The automobile policy agrees to pay all damages ‘* * *
arising out of the * * * use of the automobile’ whereas the
general liability policy agrees to pay all damages ‘* * *
arising out of an occurrence[.’] The exclusion of the
general liability policy seems to suggest that if the loss
arises out of the ‘use’ of an automobile away from the
premises it is excluded. However, such a view ignores the
insuring agreement on the different policies, and the fact
that one focuses on an occurrence and the other on the
automobile. And they are not mutually exclusive. The
court has a legitimate interest in determining whether the
use of the automobile was the ‘occurrence’ [that] produced
the liability. Clearly, if the ‘use’ of the automobile was
only incidental to the event that produced liability it
should not be an excluded event under homeowner
or general liability policies. And, as a California court
has stated, the courts will give broad construction to the
coverage provisions but strict construction to the
exclusions. Thus, there are cases that provide coverage
under the homeowner’s policy in the absence of a causal
connection between the use of the vehicle and the
accident.
The exclusions of the general liability and homeowner
policies and the insuring agreement of the automobile
policy are not mutually exclusive and recovery can be had
under both polices.
[7A Appleman, Ins. Law & Practice, § 4500 (1979)]
Eichelberger, 434 A.2d at 751-52 (citations modified; footnote omitted;
emphasis added).
We then turned to examine the California Supreme Court’s decision in
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In Partridge, the Supreme Court of California was asked to
construe the same language as that which is now before our
Court, i.e., “arising out of the use” of an automobile. As in the
case sub judice, this language in Partridge was contained in
both the inclusionary clause of an automobile policy held by the
insured and in the exclusionary language of the homeowner’s
policy. The Partridge court said:
In view of the (different canons of construction) the fact
that an accident has been found to ‘arise out of the use’ of
a vehicle for purposes of an automobile policy is not
necessarily determinative of the question of whether that
same accident falls within the similarly worded
exclusionary clause of a homeowner’s policy. (citations
omitted)
Partridge, 514 P.2d at 128.
In Partridge, the [c]ourt was faced with a situation where the
insured had committed two negligent acts [that] jointly caused
the accident. The insured in Partridge had modified a gun by
filing the trigger so that it had a “hair” trigger. The insured took
this gun with him in his vehicle when he went to hunt
jackrabbits. At the time of the accident, the insured intentionally
drove his vehicle off the paved road and onto . . . bumpy terrain.
The gun accidentally discharged, injuring the passenger. The
issue in Partridge was whether the insured’s homeowner’s
policy, in addition to the insured’s automobile policy, covered
this accident. We recognize that the Partridge case is factually
different from the instant case and that the court did find that
both policies covered the accident for the reason that there were
two joint causes to the accident[,] one auto-related and one
non-auto[-]related. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the
Partridge Court said that “liability under the homeowner’s
policy could possibly be predicated upon the ambiguity of the
exclusionary clause in the context of the instant accident . . . .”
Id. at 129. Such an ambiguity exists under the facts of the
present case. The exclusionary clause, although it says that the
policy does not apply to bodily injury “arising out of” the
ownership, etc., of any motor vehicle, does not state whether
such injury must be proximately caused by the auto or simply
causally connected with the auto. . . . [W]e hold that for
purposes of an exclusionary clause, when the words “arising out
of” the use of an automobile are read strictly against the insurer,
then it must be concluded that this clause acts to exclude only
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those injuries [that] are proximately caused by the automobile.
This interpretation is consistent with the general rule that
insurance policies are read to effect the policy’s dominant
purpose of indemnity or payment to the insured.
Eichelberger, 434 A.2d at 751-52 (citations modified).
Nor is this the only aspect of Partridge, which this Court in
Eichelberger clearly endorsed and adopted in part, that warrants
consideration. In Partridge, “State Farm contended that because the use of
the car played some causal role in the accident in question, the injuries
‘arose out of the use of the car’ within the meaning of the homeowner’s
exclusionary provision.” Id. 514 P.2d at 126. The Partridge court rejected
that argument:
Here the “use” of Partridge’s car was not the sole cause of
Vanida’s injuries but was only one of two joint causes of the
accident. Thus, even if we assume that the connection of the
car with the accident is the type of non-ambiguous causal
relationship [that] would normally bring the exclusionary clause
into play, the crucial question presented is whether a
liability insurance policy provides coverage for an
accident caused jointly by an insured risk (the negligent
filing of the trigger mechanism) and by an excluded risk
(the negligent driving). Defendants correctly contend
that when two such risks constitute concurrent proximate
causes of an accident, the insurer is liable so long as one
of the causes is covered by the policy.
****
In the instant case, . . . although the accident occurred in a
vehicle, the insured’s negligent modification of the gun
suffices, in itself, to render him fully liable for the
resulting injuries. Under these facts the damages to Vanida
are, under the language of the homeowner’s coverage clause,
“sums [that] the Insured . . . [became] legally obligated to pay”
because of the negligent filing of the trigger mechanism;
inasmuch as the liability of the insured arises from his non-auto-
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related conduct, and exists independently of any “use” of his car,
we believe the homeowner’s policy covers that liability.
Id. at 129 (emphasis added).
Heavily relying upon the reasoning set forth in Partridge, and in light
of the ambiguity we found in the vehicle exclusion, in Eichelberger, we
found that coverage would lie. Although the use of the vehicle was a factual
or “but-for” cause of the accident, the exclusion did not in unambiguous
terms bar coverage when an “occurrence” that, standing alone, would incur
coverage played a proximately causal role in the harm upon which the suit
was based.6 Cf. Penn-Am. Ins. Co. v. Peccadillos, Inc., 27 A.3d 259,
265 (Pa. Super. 2011) (en banc) (holding that provision of alcohol exclusion
did not preclude the duty to defend where, among alcohol-related allegations
that clearly were excluded, the plaintiff also stated a claim for improperly
ejecting intoxicated patron when bar staff knew or should have known that
the plaintiff would attempt to drive).
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6
At least one court has read Eichelberger as I do. See Kalell v. Mut.
Fire & Auto Ins. Co., 471 N.W.2d 865, 867-69 (Iowa 1991) (reviewing
Eichelberger at length and finding that coverage would lie for damages
arising from pulling a tree limb down by attaching it to a motor vehicle,
because the removal of a tree limb was “an independent act of negligence
and one [that] is covered by the policy,” holding that, “when two
independent acts of negligence are alleged, one vehicle-related and one not
vehicle-related, coverage is still provided under the homeowner[’s] policy
unless the vehicle-related negligence is the sole proximate cause of the
injury”).
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It is worth noting that Pennsylvania courts long have recognized
“concurrent causation” in the context of joint and several liability, holding
that “multiple substantial factors may cooperate to produce an injury.”
Harsh v. Petroll, 887 A.2d 209, 218 (Pa. 2005). Moreover, Partridge’s
concurrent causation approach has been adopted in some form by a
considerable number of our sister states.7
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7
See Scottsdale Ins. Co. v. Nguyen, 763 P.2d 540 (Ariz. Ct.
App. 1988) (finding coverage where house-moving company employee was
electrocuted when, during moving of house, it came into contact with power
line spanning street); U.S. Fid. & Guar. Co. v. State Farm Mut. Auto.
Ins. Co., 437 N.E.2d 663 (Ill. App. Ct. 1982) (finding coverage where child
was expelled from vehicle operated by day care because other acts of
negligence were asserted against day care); Kalell v. Mut. Fire & Auto.
Ins. Co., 471 N.W.2d 865 (Iowa 1991) (finding that coverage may lie where
injury arose from using pick-up truck to pull down tree limb); Lejeune v.
Allstate Ins. Co., 365 So. 2d. 471, 479 (La. 1978) (finding coverage where
sheriff driving with funeral cortege failed to secure intersection because “the
decisions [the court] could find hold that, where the automobile use
exclusion clause is sought to be applied so as to avoid coverage for injuries
otherwise covered by a general liability policy, the exclusion clause does not
apply where the insured’s act is a result of negligence independent of, even
though concurring with, his use of an automobile”); Waseca Mut. Ins. Co.
v. Noska, 331 N.W.2d 917, 923 (Minn. 1983) (finding homeowner’s
coverage when insured caused a fire while driving smoldering garbage to
landfill: “where act of placing live embers in the uncovered barrels was a
cause of the fires, homeowner’s policy afforded coverage for the risk,
without regard to intervention of the contributing cause consisting of use of
the truck”); Allstate Ins. Co. v. Watts, 811 S.W.2d 883, 887 (Tenn. 1991)
(“[T]here should be coverage in a situation . . . where a non[-]excluded
cause is a substantial factor in producing the damage or injury, even though
an excluded cause may have contributed in some form to the ultimate result
and, standing alone, would have properly invoked the exclusion . . . .”); see
also Wallach v. Rosenberg, 527 So.2d 1386, 1388 (Fla. 3d Dist. Ct. App.
1988) (quoting Couch, 11 Couch on Insurance 2d § 44:268 (rev. ed. 1982))
(finding a jury question regarding coverage under all-risk policy where
(Footnote Continued Next Page)
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In my view, the best way to reconcile Eichelberger with Wilcha is to
recognize that the gist of all of the claims in Wilcha, Filachek, Pulleyn,
and most of the other cases cited by the Majority addressed failures of
supervision or entrustment directly associated with the use or operation of a
vehicle. In these cases, not only did the accident result from the use or
operation of the vehicle, but the underlying tort claim could not be separated
from the vehicle’s operation. In none of those cases did the act of
negligence at issue entirely precede the introduction of a motor vehicle into
_______________________
(Footnote Continued)
weather combined with negligence to cause loss because policy did not
“contain[] a provision [that] specifically exclude[d] coverage where a
covered and an excluded cause combine to produce a loss,” and noting that
such coverage may lie even when the insured risk is not “the prime or
efficient cause of the accident”), disagreed with by American Home
Assurance Co., Inc., v. Sebo, 141 So.3d 195 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 2013),
review granted by Sebo v. Am. Home. Assur. Co., Inc., No. SC14-897,
2014 WL 5093402 (Fla. Oct. 7, 2014); Braxton v. U.S. Fire Ins. Co., 651
S.W.2d 616, 619-20 (Mo. Ct. App. 1983) (finding coverage under
comprehensive property policy containing exclusion for harm “arising out of
the ownership or use of any firearm” where underlying claim was for
negligent supervision of employee who shot and injured customer); Houser
v. Gilbert, 389 N.W.2d 626, 630-31 (N.D. 1986) (holding that vehicle
insurer and farm liability insurer must share pro rata in judgment where
vehicle-related act of negligence and non-vehicle-related act of negligence
were involved in truck accident caused by mud carried onto highway by
insured’s vehicle); S. Burlington v. Am. Fid. Co., 215 A.2d 508 (Vt. 1965)
(finding duty to defend despite “streets and sidewalks” exclusion, where
injuries arose from negligent maintenance of culvert that caused plaintiff’s
car to fall into sinkhole in road); Lawver v. Boling, 238 N.W.2d 514, 521
(Wis. 1976) (finding that, when “a covered risk and an excluded risk
concurred in causing injury,” it is “apparent that the insurer . . . is not being
held to provide coverage for a risk [that] it did not contemplate and for
which it received no premium”).
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the events precipitating the injury—or, as in Eichelberger and Partridge,
work in tandem with, but independently of, the vehicle’s use—such as the
provision of alcohol based upon which Wolfe asserts Ross’s liability in the
instant matter.
The Majority dismisses this distinction with little discussion:
[Wolfe] attempts to distinguish Filachek as involving claims that
a passenger “negligently plied the driver with alcohol and then
negligently supervised the intoxicated driver’s operation of the
vehicle[.]” [Wolfe’s] Supplemental Brief at 8. . . . [Wolfe]
simply ignores the express language of the exclusion that
focuses on whether the motor vehicle was the cause of the
injury, not whether the insured’s conduct giving rise to liability
arose out of [the] use of a motor vehicle. The fact that the
serving of alcohol to a minor subjected [Ross] to liability even
without the involvement of a motor vehicle does not change the
fact that the policy language excludes coverage for injuries
arising out of use of a motor vehicle. It is undisputed that the
decedent’s use of the [dirt bike] was both the proximate cause
and the cause in fact of the injury. We find no ambiguity in the
exclusionary language on the facts herein.
Maj. Op. at 16.
This analysis is irreconcilable with our reasoning in Eichelberger,
which, unlike Wilcha, et al., involved an assertion of coverage based upon a
negligent act—stepping in front of Warner’s vehicle—that might have been
associated with the use of the automobile but was not inextricable from that
use, as would be the case in a claim for negligent entrustment or
supervision. Indeed, the Majority’s rejection of Wolfe’s argument would
have required the contrary result in Eichelberger: There, also, we arguably
“simply ignore[d] the express language of the exclusion that focuses on
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whether the motor vehicle was the cause of the injury, not whether the
insured’s conduct giving rise to liability arose out of [the] use of a motor
vehicle.” Maj. Op. at 16. And it is telling that the “express language” of the
motor vehicle exclusion in the instant matter does not address causation
head-on, rendering it as ambiguous on this point as we deemed it to be in
Eichelberger.8
The distinction between Eichelberger and Wilcha is highlighted
implicitly by the Majority’s failure to cite any case in which the same or a
similar motor vehicle exclusion was deemed unambiguously to exclude
coverage that did not sound substantially in negligent supervision or
entrustment, or in some equivalent circumstance where the insurance
excluded coverage for an otherwise covered cause that was inextricably
____________________________________________
8
Notably, the court in Lawver, supra, interpreted Partridge as relying
not upon ambiguity in resolving the case in favor of coverage but, in a
stronger determination, that it suffices that one covered risk independently
contributes to the injury because that risk expressly is covered by the policy.
See Lawver, 238 N.W.2d at 521-22. We acknowledged as much in
Eichelberger, but opted for the more restrained course of ruling that the
language in question was ambiguous. Eichelberger, 434 A.2d at 752(quoting Partridge, 514 P.2d at 129) (“We recognize that the Partridge
case is factually different from the instant case and that the court did find
that both policies covered the accident for the reason that there were two
joint causes to the accident[,] one auto-related and one non-auto[-]related.
Nonetheless, it should be noted that the Partridge Court said that ‘liability
under the homeowner’s policy could possibly be predicated upon the
ambiguity of the exclusionary clause in the context of the instant
accident . . . .’”).
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intertwined with an excluded cause.9 It warrants emphasis that whether an
insurance contract is ambiguous must be assessed in context; what is
unambiguous in one circumstance may nonetheless be ambiguous in
another. See generally Eichelberger, 434 A.2d at 750-51. Thus, it is by
no means untenable to maintain that the motor vehicle exclusion requires a
____________________________________________
9
See, e.g., Maj. Op. at 23-26 (citing Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Super.
Court, 163 Cal. Rptr. 3d 609 (Cal. App. 2013) (finding no coverage for
negligent operation of truck by homeowner who ran over and killed
granddaughter); Prince v. Un. Nat’l Ins. Co., 47 Cal. Rptr. 3d 727 (Cal.
App. 2006) (finding no coverage under foster mother’s homeowner’s policy
where she left children in hot car and they died); Belmonte v. Employers
Ins. Co., 99 Cal. Rptr. 2d 661 (Cal. App. 2000) (finding no coverage for
negligent supervision where the child’s injurious use of a van constituted the
single proximate cause of the injuries); Gurrola v. Great S.W. Ins. Co., 21
Cal. Rptr. 2d 749 (Cal. App. 1993) (finding no coverage where the claimed
negligent welding of a vehicle was intertwined with the use of the motor
vehicle that led to injury); Nat’l Am. Ins. Co. v. Coburn, 257 Cal. Rptr.
591 (Cal. App. 1989) (finding no coverage where parents failed to set
parking brake while loading vehicle and a child moved the gear lever out of
“park”); see also U.S. Fid. & Guar. Co. v. St. Elizabeth Med. Ctr., 716
N.E.2d 1201 (Ohio App. 1998) (finding no coverage under malpractice
exclusion for a claim of negligent credentialing because, like negligent
entrustment of vehicle, the malpractice was necessary to, rather than
independent of, the harm)). The Majority cites the above litany of California
cases in an effort to establish that, even under Partridge, Wolfe would not
be entitled to coverage, reading them either as abrogating Partridge or
limiting it in such a way as to preclude coverage under the instant facts.
See Maj. Op. at 23-25. But as the above parenthetical descriptions make
clear, none of the cited cases involved independent, non-vehicular causes
like the filing of the trigger mechanism in Partridge or the provision of
alcohol in the instant case. Indeed, post-Partridge cases cannot fairly be
said to have abrogated or diminished that case. Rather, these cases
reinforce my view that entrustment and supervision cases can be
distinguished on a principled basis from cases like the matter before us,
where the vehicle served as the instrument of an injury that arose from
vehicle-independent tortious conduct.
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different result in an entrustment case than in a case of concurrent or
independent causation.
The Majority distinguishes Eichelberger on the basis that it “rested
upon very different facts,” Maj. Op. at 8, from those in the instant case.
However, after reviewing that case, id. at 8-10, the Majority offers no
material comment as to how those factual differences lead the Majority to
conclude that this Court should favor Wilcha and Filachek, a non-binding
federal case that essentially echoed Wilcha, over our earlier decision in
Eichelberger. Specifically, the Majority does not effectively distinguish
Eichelberger’s conclusion that an exclusion materially identical to the
exclusion in the instant case was ambiguous, and thus must be read in favor
of the insured, because the policy did not specify whether the phrase
“arising out of” applied both when the vehicle was an incidental or factual
cause of the accident and when the vehicle was the proximate cause of the
accident. Indeed, rather than distinguish Eichelberger from the instant
case, the Majority seems to rely upon the proposition that we should favor
Wilcha merely because it is more current than Eichelberger. See Maj. Op.
at 11 (observing that Wilcha and Filachek were “decided decades after
Eichelberger”). However, as one justice of our Supreme Court recently
observed, a court “should not frustrate the fundamental principles of stare
decisis by overturning a case that does not contravene the doctrinal
underpinnings of our existing precedent and is not factually similar in regard
to several crucial aspects [of] the case at bar.” Commonwealth v. Moore,
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103 A.3d 1240, 1255 (Pa. 2014) (Baer, J., concurring). I would not declare
the desuetude of an older case when a principled distinction from
subsequent cases provides ample explanation for the cases’ disparate
outcomes.
The Majority also rejects Wolfe’s invitation to adopt the reasoning of
the New Jersey Supreme Court in Salem Group v. Oliver, 607 A.2d 138(N.J. 1992). See Maj. Op. at 18-20. In Salem Group, the minor plaintiff
was injured while operating the insured’s ATV after the insured had given
him alcohol. The court found that the insurer at least was obligated to
defend the social host liability claims these events engendered:
No one disputes that insurers are generally obligated to defend
their insureds on social host claims. The critical question is
whether the insurer can avoid that obligation because a separate
excluded risk, the operation of an all-terrain vehicle (ATV),
constitutes an additional cause of the injury. We find that the
insurer remains obligated to defend the covered risk. It may not
avoid that obligation simply because the operation of an ATV
constitutes an additional cause of the injury.
****
It is not at all clear that the exclusion for the operation of an ATV
is to apply when the insured provides liquor to the victim, who
then drives the insured’s ATV. Arguably, the exclusion does not
apply in that context. When a policy fairly supports an
interpretation favorable to both the insured and the insurer, the
policy should be interpreted in favor of the insured.
A contrary conclusion could defeat the reasonable expectations
of the insured, which should be respected to the extent the
policy’s language allows. In certain contexts, if Newman had
provided an ATV, alcoholic beverages, or both, the policy
apparently would cover a resulting accident. Arguably, if the
accident had occurred while [plaintiff] was driving the ATV on
[the insured’s] property, [the insured] would be covered. Or if
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[the insured] had provided [plaintiff] with alcohol and the
accident had occurred while [plaintiff] was driving another’s ATV,
[the insured] arguably would be covered. Given those
possibilities and the wording of the exclusion, [the insured] could
reasonably expect that the policy would cover him when he
provided both the ATV and the alcoholic beverages that
contributed to the causation of an accident not on [the insured’s]
property.
Id. at 139 (citations omitted).10 Notably, the New Jersey Supreme Court
rejected the insurer’s reliance upon two New Jersey precedents finding no
coverage on the basis that those cases, unlike Salem Group, presented
negligent entrustment or supervision claims inextricably intertwined with the
operation of a vehicle. Salem Group, 607 A.2d at 139. The court held that
“[t]hose opinions proceed[ed] on the assumption that negligent entrustment
or supervision of a motor vehicle is intertwined with the ownership and
operation of the motor vehicle. . . . In contrast, the serving of alcohol to a
minor does not depend on the insured’s ownership of a motor vehicle or its
entrustment to another.” Id. at 140.
The Majority makes much of the fact that at issue in Salem Group
was the insurer’s duty to defend the claim, not its obligation to provide
coverage. See Maj. Op. at 19-20. While the Majority is correct that the
duty to defend is broader than the duty to indemnify, see Peccadillos, 27
____________________________________________
10
Cf. Lawver, 238 N.W.2d at 521 (holding that “the insurer . . . is not
being held to provide coverage for a risk [that] it did not contemplate and
for which it received no premium”).
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A.3d at 265,11 the duty to defend found in Salem Group was based
expressly (and necessarily) on its recognition that coverage might lie under
the facts of that case. Despite its qualification that it “h[e]ld not that the
insurer may ultimately be liable under the policy, but only that it must honor
its duty to defend,” Salem Group, 607 A.2d at 140—an observation merely
rooted in the question there presented—the court, in finding a duty to
defend, necessarily found that coverage could lie. See also Peccadillos,
27 A.3d at 265 (“The obligation to defend arises whenever the complaint
filed by the injured party may potentially come within the coverage of the
policy.”). It would be nonsensical and contrary to law to grant the insured a
defense if a finding in favor of coverage on the facts as pleaded was not
perceived to be a plausible legal outcome.12 Moreover, the Salem Group
____________________________________________
11
As noted, supra, in Peccadillos, somewhat reinforcing Eichelberger’s
guiding principle, this Court, sitting en banc, found that the insurer owed a
defense to a bar where some claims clearly fell within the policy’s alcohol
exclusion but at least one claim—that the bar improperly ejected an
intoxicated patron when it knew or should have known that he would drive—
was not included expressly excluded by the policy.
12
The Majority relies upon Flomerfelt v. Cardiello, 997 A.2d 991(N.J. 2010), to reinforce the proposition that Salem Group, in finding only a
duty to defend when that was the only question presented, somehow implied
a refusal to grant coverage in an appropriate, factually similar case, but
leaves out that Flomerfelt lent considerable support to my less restrained
reading of Salem Group. Therein, the court observed, regarding New
Jersey law, that “[i]n situations in which multiple events, one of which is
covered, occur sequentially in a chain of causation to produce a loss, we
have adopted the approach known as ‘Appleman’s rule,’ pursuant to which
the loss is covered if a covered cause starts or ends the sequence of events
leading to the loss.” 997 A.2d at 1000 (citing, inter alia, Auto Lenders
(Footnote Continued Next Page)
- 22 -
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court, in its repeated allusions to alternative but closely similar scenarios
that would lead to coverage and its emphasis upon the reasonable
expectations of the insured, strongly suggested that it was merely exercising
restraint in not reaching the question of coverage prematurely, not that it
believed an obligation to defend existed despite a negligible likelihood of
coverage being found under the circumstances of that case, which resemble
the facts and circumstances sub judice far more closely than any other case
cited herein or by the Majority.
In short, I find the learned Majority’s dismissal of this case on that
basis alone to be a red herring. The Majority’s entire response to Salem
Group, including that case’s discussion of and reliance upon Partridge, is to
treat as dispositive the distinction between determining whether an insurer
owes a defense or coverage to an insured. This does not actually provide
any assessment of Salem Group’s soundness in its distinction between
negligent supervision/entrustment claims from those in which two
independent causes, one covered and one excluded, lead to injury. If
Salem Group found, as I would, that the distinction may change the
outcome in the context of the duty to defend, then it also found in principle
that the distinction might, in an appropriate case, also change the outcome
_______________________
(Footnote Continued)
Acceptance Corp. v. Gentilini Ford, Inc., 854 A.2d 378 (N.J. 2004)
(quoting 5 Appleman, Insurance Law & Practice § 3083 at 309-11 (1970))).
Under that rule as stated, it seems more than likely that a New Jersey court
would find coverage under the facts sub judice.
- 23 -
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as to coverage. The Majority freights this distinction with more weight than
it can bear.
In any event, Salem Group, like Partridge, merely provides
guidance; it is unnecessary to reach the same result in this case (with
respect to coverage rather than defense). Eichelberger and Wilcha suffice
to require us to recognize that a case hinging upon negligent entrustment or
supervision presents a circumstance legally distinct from a case in which the
claims are based upon a cause that is antecedent to or concurrent with, and
independent of, subsequent events that link that cause to the ultimate
injury.
In this regard, Wilcha, itself, lends support to my view:
The fatal weakness of the appellants’ contention for coverage lies
in its failure to acknowledge one of the elements essential to
recovery for negligent entrustment—the negligent operation of
the motor vehicle . . . .
The plain wording of the exclusionary provision reveals the
deficiency in this rationale. While liability (apart from coverage)
for negligent entrustment is not conditioned upon the entrustor’s
ownership or use of the vehicle, negligent use by the one to
whom it is entrusted is essential to recovery. It is the
concurrence of these dual elements—negligent
entrustment by the owner or custodian of the
instrumentality plus its negligent use by the entrustee—
that is missing in the rationale of those cases upholding
coverage. Taken literally, [under] this line of reasoning—that
negligent entrustment of the vehicle, and not its use, is the basis
of insured’s alleged liability—the injured party could recover
absent any showing that the incompetent to whom the vehicle is
entrusted caused the injury by his negligent use of the vehicle.
As we have already observed, this does not comport with the
elements that make up this tort concept of negligent
entrustment.
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Wilcha, 887 A.2d at 1263 (quoting Erie Ins. Exch. v. Transam. Ins. Co.,
507 A.2d 389, 396 (Pa. Super. 1986), reversed on other grounds, 533 A.2d
1363 (Pa. 1987)) (emphasis added). In short, Wilcha limited its own scope
based upon the very distinction that I would recognize in preserving
Eichelberger and applying it in this case.13
In this case, no element of the claim asserting that Ross negligently
provided alcohol to Wolfe’s decedent inherently required the involvement of
a motor vehicle to result in liability. Rather, it required only harm arising
from the provision of alcohol. Decedent might have fallen from a window or
down a flight of stairs. He might have walked in front of speeding traffic in
front of the house or fallen asleep in a full bath tub. And, perhaps most
relevantly, Decedent might have injured himself in an accident while
operating his own vehicle after leaving Ross’s house. All things being equal,
any of those scenarios may have resulted in coverage, provided that the
instrument or vehicle in question did not belong to Ross. It beggars belief
that a materially identical scenario would not require coverage—and as a
practical matter in cases in which the defendant is insolvent or otherwise
judgment-proof, present the risk of little or no recovery by the injured
____________________________________________
13
At a minimum, Wilcha expressly excludes from its ambit (and without
criticism) cases that do not feature the substantive intertwining of the
vehicle and the underlying negligence claim that is characteristic of
supervision and entrustment claims. This, in turn, highlights that the
Majority’s application of Wilcha would expand its scope at the expense of
Eichelberger.
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plaintiff—simply by virtue of which instrumentality connected Decedent’s
inebriation to the injury. See Salem Group, 607 A.2d at 139-40 (finding
similar potential anomalies of coverage at odds with the insured’s reasonable
expectations).
To be clear, the automobile exclusion at issue in this case reasonably
can be read to preclude coverage in this case. However, a clause is
ambiguous when another reasonable reading leads to a contrary result.
Adamitis v. Erie Ins. Exch., 54 A.3d 371, 380 (Pa. Super. 2012) (quoting
Kropa v. Gateway Ford, 974 A.2d 502, 508 (Pa. Super. 2009)) (“The
provisions of an insurance contract are ambiguous if its terms are subject to
more than one reasonable interpretation when applied to a particular set of
facts.”).14 As in Eichelberger, I would find that the exclusion at issue
reasonably may be read to exclude coverage only in cases where the use of
the automobile was intrinsic to the asserted tort, rather than serving as an
independent cause of the injury. In so doing, my views are in harmony with
the restrained application of Partridge ventured in Eichelberger—that the
exclusion does not apply because it is ambiguous.
____________________________________________
14
Cf. Madison Constr. Co. v. Harleysville Mut. Ins., 735 A.2d 100,
110 (Pa. 1999) (Cappy, J., dissenting) (finding ambiguity in the phrase
“arising out of” as used in a pollution exclusion provision with regard to
“whether the phrase requires merely a causal relationship (i.e., a ‘but for’
relationship), or a proximate cause relationship”).
- 26 -
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Eichelberger, Partridge, and Salem Group, in their assessments of
what constitutes an independent tort that requires coverage notwithstanding
the operation or use of an automobile, more closely align with the relevant
facts of the instant case than do Wilcha, Filachek, or any of the other
cases relied upon by the Majority. Consequently, I would find that the
vehicle exclusion policy as applied to this case is ambiguous, and must be
construed in favor of the insured. I respectfully dissent.
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