Dutton v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance

383 So. 2d 519, 1980 Ala. LEXIS 2754
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedFebruary 8, 1980
DocketNo. 78-678
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 383 So. 2d 519 (Dutton v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dutton v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, 383 So. 2d 519, 1980 Ala. LEXIS 2754 (Ala. 1980).

Opinions

BEATTY, Justice.

Defendant Jerry Wayne Dutton appeals from the denial of his motion to vacate a judgment entered by the Jefferson County Circuit Court declaring that plaintiff, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, was under no duty to pay any damages that might be awarded defendant in his separate action at law against certain parties insured by State Farm and that State Farm was not obligated to defend that action. We affirm.

In 1977, State Farm issued to Earnest F. Hallmark a policy of liability insurance covering a 1965 Ford automobile owned by Mr. Hallmark. Under the policy, State Farm agreed:

To pay on behalf of the insured all sums which the insured shall become legally obligated to pay as damages because of
(A) bodily injury sustained by other persons, and
(B) property damage,
caused by accident arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use .. . of the owned motor vehicle; and to defend, . . . any suit against the insured alleging such bodily injury or property damage and seeking damages which are payable hereunder . . . . [Emphasis added.]

The definitions section of the policy provides, inter alia, that

[T]he unqualified word “insured” includes
(1) the named insured, and
(2) if the named insured is a person or persons, also includes his or their spouse(s), if a resident of the same household, and
(3) if residents of the same household, the relatives of the first person named in the declarations, or of his spouse, and
(4) any other person while using the owned motor vehicle, PROVIDED THE OPERATION AND THE ACTUAL USE OF SUCH VEHICLE ARE WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE NAMED INSURED OR SUCH SPOUSE AND ARE WITHIN THE SCOPE OF SUCH PERMISSION.

The record discloses that on September 26, 1977, the insured automobile, a 1965 Ford Mustang, was being driven by one Karen Klein, a minor then fourteen years of age, when it was involved in a collision with a vehicle driven by Jerry Wayne Dut-ton. Miss Klein had acquired possession of the automobile earlier that day when Mike Hallmark, the seventeen year old son of Earnest Hallmark, lent it to her at her request, for her own purposes, without the knowledge or consent of his parents; indeed, both parents testified that Mike had been specifically told by them not to allow anyone else to use the car. Mike did not have his own key to the Mustang, and on the day of the accident was told by his mother not to drive the automobile “unless he just went to the store and back.” On March 15,. 1978, Dutton filed a suit for damages against Mike Hallmark and his brother Alfred Hallmark — the record owner of the vehicle — alleging that the Hallmarks negligently entrusted the car to Karen Klein at a time when they knew or, in the exercise of reasonable care, should have known, that Miss Klein was an incompetent driver. Prior to trial in the damage action, State Farm filed an action in equity against Dutton and the Hallmarks seeking a declaration that it had neither a duty to defend the Hallmarks in Dutton’s action for damages nor any obligation to pay any damages awarded Dutton in that case. Dutton now appeals from the trial court’s decree in favor of State Farm.

The' evidence clearly shows that Mike Hallmark was an “insured” under the terms of the liability policy, as he is the son of Earnest Hallmark (“the first person named in the declarations”) and was a resident of the same household as Earnest Hallmark. The issue on this appeal is whether the injuries sustained by Mr. Dutton in the collision with the Hallmark vehicle (driven [521]*521at the time by Karen Klein) were the result of an “accident arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use” by Mike Hallmark of the owned motor vehicle.

It is clear that there is coverage only if the alleged negligent entrustment of the Hallmark automobile by Mike, a bailee, can be said to be an incident of his ownership, maintenance, or use of the car. Mike did not own the vehicle, nor was he maintaining it; State Farm’s duty to defend Mike and to pay any damages awarded against him in the Dutton lawsuit is thus contingent on whether the accident arose out of Mike’s “use” of the Mustang. We hold that it did not.

This Court has not previously addressed the precise question posed in this case. However, it is claimed by the parties that the recent case of Cooter v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Co., Ala., 344 So.2d 496 (1977) provides some insight. In Cooter, the named insured under a homeowner's insurance policy allegedly negligently entrusted his automobile to his son. The policy contained an exclusion which was to the effect that there was no coverage for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle owned, operated by, rented or loaned to any insured. In affirming a declaratory judgment holding that there was no coverage under the homeowner’s policy, we stated:

We now consider State Farm’s second contention — that plaintiff’s injuries arose out of the insured’s ownership as well as his son’s use of the vehicle. This argument stands over against the appellant’s contention that liability is grounded upon negligent entrustment of the vehicle, not its negligent use by the one to whom it is entrusted. It is on this point that we agree with appellee, State Farm, and thus affirm the trial Court.

In the instant case, State Farm contends that Cooter supports a proposition of law that governs in this situation; that is, that one who negligently allows another to operate a motor vehicle is not using the vehicle, but is instead exercising an incident of ownership. Coverage would thus be afforded only if the owner negligently permitted someone else to use his car, and not if — as in this case — a mere bailee negligently entrusted the owner’s vehicle to a third party. Although at first glance we were impressed with the soundness of this line of argument, we are forced to reject it because the language utilized in Cooter does not affirmatively exclude the possibility that a bailee who entrusted a vehicle to a third party known to be incompetent could have been “using” the vehicle. In fact, both the Ohio Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court agreed that a bailee who allowed a friend to drive her father’s automobile was “using” the car, and she herself was benefited by the friend’s transporting her to school in the car. See Brown v. Kennedy, 49 N.E.2d 418 (Ohio App.1942), aff’d, 141 Ohio St. 457, 48 N.E.2d 857 (1943). Being impressed with the logic employed by the Ohio courts, we are unwilling to concede that Cooter mandates the conclusion argued by State Farm in this case.

Our analysis of cases from other jurisdictions, however, has convinced us that Mike Hallmark was not “using” his father’s automobile at the time of the collision in this case because it is uncontradicted that the journey undertaken by Miss Klein was at her request, for her own purposes, and was not in any sense beneficial to Mike Hallmark.

The Brown case, supra,

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Bluebook (online)
383 So. 2d 519, 1980 Ala. LEXIS 2754, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dutton-v-state-farm-mutual-automobile-insurance-ala-1980.