Opinion
File No. 1:01-CV-71
August 6, 2001
ORDER
In accordance with the opinion entered on this date, the Court hereby ORDERS that:
Defendant U.S. Life's motion for summary judgment (Docket # 14) is GRANTED, Plaintiff Irene M. Hagger's motion for summary judgment (Docket # 13) is DENIED, and the case is DISMISSED in its entirety.
OPINION
In this diversity action Plaintiff Ilene Hagger brings a claim for unpaid life insurance benefits following the death of her husband in an auto accident. Defendant U.S. Life Insurance Co. contends that causes of decedent's death were not covered under the terms of the policy. Before the Court are the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment pursuant to FED. R. CIV. P. 56. For the reasons states below, the Court grants Defendant's motion for summary judgment.
Facts
The facts are not in dispute. After dark on the night of November 26, 1999, Decedent Daniel Hagger and his daughter, Sarah Hagger, were traveling southbound in the right-hand lane of U.S. 131 just south of Cadillac, Michigan. Ms. Hagger was driving her 1989 Escort, and Decedent was in the front passenger seat. A Pontiac driven by Robert Berg traveling in front of the Haggers moved into the passing lane. Ms. Hagger, believing the Pontiac was going around a slower vehicle, followed into the passing lane. The Pontiac suddenly braked to use the emergency vehicle turnaround, and Ms. Hagger rear-ended him.
The Pontiac ended up in the median, and Ms. Hagger's Escort came to rest in the passing lane with the front driver's side canted toward the median. The lights on the Escort were apparently damaged in the accident and ceased to work. The Haggers, unharmed, got out of the car and realized that the Escort presented a danger because it was in the passing lane, it was night, and the Escort had no lights on. After several minutes Mr. Hagger approached the Escort to see if he could get the lights working. According to Ms. Hagger, he stood in the "V" made by the open driver's side door, with his back to any oncoming traffic. Ms. Hagger backed off into the median. At that point (approximately 5 minutes after the initial accident) a Mercury driven by Ivan Epp approached the scene. Mr. Epp failed to see the darkened Escort and rammed it, fatally injuring Mr. Hagger as he stood outside the car.
On April 25, 2000, U.S. Life denied Plaintiff's claim for $100,000 in benefits. (At the hearing on summary judgment Plaintiff recognized that the policy amount was actually for $50,000 and consequently modified the demand.) U.S. Life denied benefits, explaining that Mr. Hagger was a pedestrian at the time of the accident that caused his death, and because the policy states that the loss of life must occur while the deceased was "driving or riding" in a private passenger vehicle, the requirements of the policy were not met. Plaintiff subsequently filed this action.
Analysis
Summary judgment is appropriate where "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c). An issue concerning a material fact is genuine if the record as a whole could lead a reasonable trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986).
The moving party bears the initial burden of showing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986). The burden then shifts to the nonmoving party to come forward with evidence showing that there is a genuine issue of material fact that must go to trial. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 256. Here, neither party asserts the existence of a genuine issue of material fact. If the nonmoving party fails to make a sufficient showing on an essential element of its case with respect to which it has the burden of proof, the moving party is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. See Celotex Corp., 477 U.S. at 324.
Although a choice of law clause in the contract stipulates that Tennessee law shall apply, Plaintiffs have asserted that Michigan law should apply, and Defendant has waived any objections to the application of Michigan law. See Defendant's Reply Brief (Docket # 17). In addition, although the death was caused by an automobile, the policy comes under Michigan contract and insurance law rather than Michigan no-fault statutes.
The pertinent clause in the policy contract between the Haggers and U.S. Life reads as follows:
United States Life will pay an accidental death benefit in the amount of coverage applicable to the insured person if an insured person suffers loss of life as the result of a covered accident which occurs while he is driving or riding in a private passenger car.
Michigan law requires that insurance contracts be construed according to their plain and unambiguous meaning. Courts cannot "create ambiguity where none exists . . . It is impossible to hold an insurance company liable for a risk it did not assume." Auto-Owners Ins. Co. v. Churchman, 440 Mich. 560, 566-67 (1992). Courts must "reject the temptation to rewrite the plain and unambiguous meaning of the policy under the guise of interpretation." Upjohn Co. v. New Hampshire Ins. Co., 438 Mich. 197, 207 (1991).
On the other hand, the Court recognizes that Michigan courts have long held that ambiguous terms must be construed in favor of the insured. See Royal Globe Ins. v. Frankenmuth Ins. Co., 419 Mich. 565, 573 (1984). Plaintiff asserts that the contract clause is ambiguous because the meaning of "result of" is not clear. Plaintiff argues that one construction would be that a loss of life is covered if it results from an accident that occurs while the deceased is riding or driving. A second construction would be that a loss of life is covered only if the loss occurs during an accident involving an automobile while the deceased is riding or driving that automobile.
The Court finds that the clause is not ambiguous. The clear meaning of the phrase "result of" is that the death must be proximately caused by an accident occurring to an automobile when the insured party is riding in or driving the automobile. To give weight to any other reading would be to create an ambiguity where none exists.
Defendant asserts that the Deceased must have been riding in or driving an automobile when the injury resulting in death occurs. See Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, at 11. This rendering ignores the meaning of the phrase "results from." Under Defendant's rendering individuals thrown, uninjured, from a vehicle and who subsequently died from injuries sustained upon impact with the ground would not be covered. Such a case, however, would be covered by the policy because of the absence of an intervening cause.
The recognition of the implicit principle of proximate cause in the plain meaning of the text also prevents absurd results resulting from over-extension of the causal chain. Thus a case in which the decedent is in a minor accident, must check into a hotel, and is killed when the hotel is destroyed in a fire would not be proximately caused by the initial accident, although the death can be said to "result from" the initial accident. The causal nexus is simply too remote to bring it within the terms of a policy such as the one before the Court.
Plaintiff asserts that Decedent's death was close enough to the initial accident to merit coverage under the terms of the policy. Plaintiff argues that decedent "was killed as a result of an automobile accident involving the automobile in which he was a passenger." See Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment, at 1. In Plaintiff's view, the event was a chainreaction collision in which the Deceased would not have been killed but for the initial accident in which he was a passenger.
The Court disagrees with Plaintiff's argument. When Decedent left the vehicle after the accident he was unhurt. Some minutes later he approached the vehicle once again, not for the purpose of riding or driving, but to fix the lights. He was removed from the zone of danger created by the initial accident. Then, under his own volition, he placed himself once again in the zone of danger by approaching the car. That act was a sufficient intervening cause to severe the causal connection to the covered accident. Because of this intervening cause, the initial accident is no longer a proximate cause of Decedent's death, and Plaintiff may not recover under the policy.
Moreover, Michigan courts have established strict limits on the scope of proximate cause in insurance cases. The Michigan Supreme Court has declared that the issue of causation in insurance contract disputes differs from torts in that "you are not to trouble yourself with distant causes. . . . [I]n insurance cases the concern is not with the question of culpability or why the injury occurred, but only with the nature of the injury and how it happened." Vanguard Ins. Co. v. Clarke, 438 Mich. 463, 466 n. 3 (1991). In Vanguard, the court concluded by declining to extend the theory of concurrent causation to insurance contracts.
Plaintiff also argues that under Michigan law the definition of "riding in" is broad enough to include the deceased's return to the automobile. Plaintiff argues that Decedent was killed through his "role" as a passenger in the Escort. Because "he was a passenger at the time of the initial collision and was tending to the vehicle at the time of the second impact, he died as a `result' of the initial collision." Plaintiff's Brief for Summary Judgment, at 4-5. Plaintiff thus seeks to read the terms "riding or driving" so as to include Mr. Hagger's later act of returning to the stricken Escort to work on the headlamps.
This argument fails. The Michigan Supreme Court has historically been reluctant to expand the definition of "riding or driving" to include coverage when there are intervening causes. In Wertman v. Michigan Mutual Liability Co., 267 Mich. 508 (1934), the deceased was driving his car when he lost control and struck an electric pole, causing a high-voltage wire to fall onto the car. The deceased left the car and less than five minutes later approached it again despite the warnings of a crowd that had gathered. Upon touching the door handle he was electrocuted. The contract stated that benefits were due upon the death of the covered individual by "external, violent and accidental means caused while the insured is riding in, either as driver or passenger" of an automobile. The court, declaring the language to be clear, found that the death was not covered under the policy. Wertman, 267 Mich. at 510.
Nor do cases cited by Plaintiff support the expansive reading of "riding or driving." The cases offered by Plaintiff are not precisely on point because they interpret the term "occupant" rather than "riding or driving." For instance, a man struck and killed by a car while changing his tire was "occupying" the vehicle at the time. Rednour v. Hastings Mutual Insurance Co., ___ Mich. App. ___, 2001 (Mich. Docket No. 216025) (see Plaintiff's Exhibit G). In Rednour, however, the term "occupying" was broadly defined in the policy itself as "in, upon, getting in, on, out or off." Here, the policy offers no broad definition to expand the common usage of a term.
Plaintiff also points to Nickerson v. Citizens Mutual Insurance Co., in which the court found that a passenger that got out of a stalled car and walked to the front where he was struck by another car was "occupying" the vehicle for insurance purposes. See Nickerson v. Citizens Mutual Insurance Co., 393 Mich. 324 (1975). The Nickerson court, however, which relied upon Rednour, found that the term "occupying" is easily distinguishable from policies which only cover accidents where the insured is riding in or driving his vehicle. Nickerson, 393 Mich. at 330, n. 3 (finding that the "riding and driving" language of the policies in Wertman and Eynon v. Continental Life Ins. Co., 252 Mich. 279 (1930), distinguished those cases from one in which the policy used the term "occupying").
For the foregoing reasons the Court concludes that because there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that Plaintiff has failed to make a sufficient showing that the law of Michigan would support her expansive rendering of the language of the policy. Defendant, therefore, is entitled to judgment as a matter of law pursuant to FED. R. CIV. P. 56.
Accordingly, an order consistent with this opinion will be entered.