Bauer v. USAA Casualty Insurance

2006 WI App 152, 720 N.W.2d 187, 295 Wis. 2d 481, 2006 Wisc. App. LEXIS 584
CourtCourt of Appeals of Wisconsin
DecidedJune 29, 2006
Docket2005AP2443
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 2006 WI App 152 (Bauer v. USAA Casualty Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bauer v. USAA Casualty Insurance, 2006 WI App 152, 720 N.W.2d 187, 295 Wis. 2d 481, 2006 Wisc. App. LEXIS 584 (Wis. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

DYKMAN, J.

¶ 1. Melanie Bauer, personally, and as personal representative of the estate of Matthew W Oleson, appeals from an order dismissing her complaint against State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company. The issue raised on summary judgment is whether the underinsured motorist (UIM) clause of her automobile policy with State Farm covered her son, Matthew Oleson, when he was killed while riding in an automobile driven by a friend. We conclude that Matthew did not "reside primarily with" Bauer and *483 therefore, under the unambiguous language of Bauer's policy, Matthew was not insured by Bauer's UIM coverage. We therefore affirm.

¶ 2. Summary judgment methodology is well known and we need not repeat it here. Our review is de novo, and is limited to the pleadings, and the parties' affidavits and other material. Nielsen v. Spencer, 2005 WI App 207, ¶ 9, 287 Wis. 2d 273, 704 N.W.2d 390. State Farm's affidavit included pertinent parts of Bauer's insurance policy, portions of her deposition, her response to State Farm's interrogatories and several documents. Bauer submitted her affidavit and the affidavit of her attorney, to which he attached Bauer's entire deposition, portions of her insurance policy with State Farm and her answers to State Farm's interrogatories. The parties do not assert a conflict in the documents. They disagree on the meaning of State Farm's UIM coverage.

¶ 3. Matthew lived with his mother from birth through high school. He then enlisted in the Navy, and attended boot camp and advanced training from June through December 2001. He returned to his mother's home for three weeks' leave. He was then sent to his "home port" of Gulf Port, Mississippi, from where he was dispatched on several missions. For the first six months in Gulf Port, he lived on base. After that, he rented an apartment with a roommate. Between missions, when granted leave, he would return to his mother's home for two weeks' time. Matthew obtained a Mississippi fishing license and kept his motorcycle and personal items at his apartment. He maintained a Wisconsin operator's permit and a Wisconsin bank account, to which his pay checks were deposited. His *484 motorcycle was licensed in Wisconsin. His income tax return listed his mother's home as his home address. His mother kept a room in her home for his use, and Matthew stored bows, guns and clothing there. He planned on returning to Wisconsin after his five-year Navy enlistment. He was killed in an automobile accident in Wisconsin on May 9, 2004, while riding with an underinsured driver.

¶ 4. Melanie Bauer's UIM clause in her policy with State Farm defines the persons insured by UIM vehicle coverage as: (1) the first person named in the declarations; (2) his or her spouse, and (3) their relatives. The policy's definition of a "relative" is "a person related to you or your spouse by blood, marriage or adoption who resides primarily with you. It includes your unmarried and unemancipated child away at school." The parties' dispute concerns whether, for purposes of UIM coverage, Matthew "reside [d] primarily" with his mother, Melanie Bauer, at the time of his death.

¶ 5. Wisconsin cases have not interpreted the phrase "resides primarily with you." Bauer asserts that cases interpreting the word "resident" are relevant to our interpretation of this phrase. She relies on several of these cases, the first of which is Doern v. Crawford, 30 Wis. 2d 206, 210, 213, 140 N.W.2d 193 (1966), overruled on other grounds, Belling v. Harn, 65 Wis. 2d 108, 221 N.W.2d 888 (1974), which interpreted an insurance policy containing the phrase "resident of the same household." We are not convinced that this phrase and "resides primarily with you" are fungible. The word "primarily" focuses our analysis on where a person's primary residence is located. Doern held only that because there were competing inferences as to whether *485 the policyholder resided with the person asserting coverage, summary judgment was improperly granted. Doern, 30 Wis. 2d at 214. Even if we were to use the Doern test, which includes a requirement that "the absence from the family roof must he of a temporary nature ...," we would conclude that Matthew's five-year enlistment in the Navy was not a temporary absence. Id. at 213 (emphasis added). Thus, Matthew's undisputed intent to return to Wisconsin after his Navy service would not carry the day even if coverage were governed by the Doern test.

¶ 6. Bauer asks us to apply the test for whether a person was a "resident of the same household" that the court employed in Pamperin v. Milwaukee Mut. Ins. Co., 55 Wis. 2d 27, 36-37, 197 N.W.2d 783 (1972). There, the court concluded that:

[A] determination as to whether a person is a resident or member of a household in the present context is dependent upon three factors: (1) Living under the same roof; (2) in a close, intimate and informal relationship; and (3) where the intended duration is likely to be substantial, where it is consistent with the informality of the relationship, and from which it is reasonable to conclude that the parties would consider the relationship in contracting about such matters as insurance or in their conduct in reliance thereon.

Id. (citation omitted).

¶ 7. We have the same difficulty with Pamperin that we had with Doern. We are not interpreting the policy language the court interpreted in Pamperin. Pamperin concluded that the jury's finding as to residency was not supported by the evidence. The Pamperin three-factor test is: (1) Living under the same roof; (2) in a close, intimate and informal relationship; and (3) where the intended duration is likely to be *486 substantial. Matthew received two-weeks' leave between assignments. His fatal accident occurred during one of those leaves. Even assuming that the accident occurred near the end of his leave, the time spent with Bauer, like the week to ten-day stay in Pamperin, was not substantial. Therefore, even if we used the Pamperin test, Bauer would not prevail.

¶ 8. Again assuming that the phrase "resident of the same household" has the same meaning as the phrase "resides primarily with you," Bauer argues that Seichter v. McDonald, 228 Wis. 2d 838, 844-45, 599 N.W.2d 71 (Ct. App. 1999), controls our decision here. Seichter reiterated the three-factor test of Pamperin, and also considered a five-factor test, noting that we cited this test with approval in Ross v. Martini, 204 Wis. 2d 354, 358, 555 N.W.2d 381 (Ct. App. 1996). But there is a difference in the two phrases.

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2006 WI App 152, 720 N.W.2d 187, 295 Wis. 2d 481, 2006 Wisc. App. LEXIS 584, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bauer-v-usaa-casualty-insurance-wisctapp-2006.