Main Street America Assurance Co. v. Carpenter
This text of Main Street America Assurance Co. v. Carpenter (Main Street America Assurance Co. v. Carpenter) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
25-909-cv Main Street America Assurance Co. v. Carpenter
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 13th day of February, two thousand twenty-six.
PRESENT: JOSÉ A. CABRANES, ALISON J. NATHAN, SARAH A. L. MERRIAM, Circuit Judges. _____________________________________
Main Street America Assurance Company,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 25-909-cv
Shane Carpenter,
Defendant-Appellant,
Northeast Property Maintenance, Joshua Warner, Michelle Warner, Defendants.
_____________________________________
FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: Gregory Teresi, Teresi Law, PLLC, Lake George, NY, Of Counsel, LaMarche Safranko Law PLLC, Cohoes, NY.
FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE: David P. Johnson, Gerber Ciano Kelly Brady LLP, Buffalo, NY.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern
District of New York (Coombe, J.).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED,
ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.
Defendant-Appellant Shane Carpenter appeals from the district court’s
entry of summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff-Appellee Main Street America
Assurance Company (Main Street). Carpenter was injured when a truck used by
his employer, Northeast Property Maintenance (Northeast), rolled down a gravel
driveway and dragged him along with it. He had crawled under the truck to
investigate a problem with the truck’s transmission. Northeast was insured by
2 Main Street pursuant to a policy that did not cover “[b]odily injury or property
damage arising out of the ownership, maintenance, use or entrustment to others
of any . . . auto . . . owned or operated by or rented or loaned to any insured.”
App’x at 101 (quotation marks omitted). After Carpenter sued Northeast and its
owners in New York state court, Main Street filed a declaratory judgment action
in federal court. Main Street sought a declaration that it had no duty to defend
or indemnify Northeast or its owners in the state-court lawsuit.
The district court concluded that the auto exclusion provision in the
businessowners policy Main Street issued to Northeast precluded coverage of the
injuries Carpenter alleged in the state-court suit and granted summary judgment
to Main Street. See Main St. Am. Assurance Co. v. Ne. Prop. Maint., 770 F. Supp. 3d
442, 453 (N.D.N.Y. 2025). We assume the parties’ familiarity with the remaining
facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal, to which we refer only as necessary
to explain our decision to affirm.
* * *
We review a district court’s grant of a motion for summary judgment de
novo. Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co. v. OneBeacon Ins. Co., 49 F.4th 105, 112 (2d Cir. 2022).
3 “Summary judgment is required if there is no genuine dispute as to any material
fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Covington
Specialty Ins. Co. v. Indian Lookout Country Club, Inc., 62 F.4th 748, 752 (2d Cir. 2023)
(quotation marks omitted).
Under New York law, an insurance contract that is “clear and unambiguous
on its face must be enforced according to the plain meaning of its terms.” Utica
Mut. Ins. Co. v. Fireman’s Fund Ins. Co., 957 F.3d 337, 344 (2d Cir. 2020) (quotation
marks omitted). On appeal, Carpenter contends that, whatever the plain
meaning of “arising out of the . . . maintenance [or] use” of an automobile, App’x
at 101, his conduct did not fall within it—or, at the very least, a genuine dispute of
material fact should have precluded the district court from deciding that it did.
We disagree.
In auto exclusion provisions, the phrase “arising out of” is “ordinarily
understood to mean originating from, incident to, or having connection with.”
Maroney v. N.Y. Cent. Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 5 N.Y.3d 467, 472 (2005) (quotation marks
omitted). It “requires only that there be some causal relationship between the
injury and the risk for which coverage is provided” or excluded. Country-Wide
4 Ins. Co. v. Excelsior Ins. Co., 147 A.D.3d 407, 409 (1st Dep’t 2017) (quotation marks
omitted). And “‘[m]aintenance’ . . . means performance of work on ‘an intrinsic
part of the mechanism of the car and its overall function.’” Guishard v. Gen. Sec.
Ins. Co., 9 N.Y.3d 900, 902 (2007) (quoting Farmers Fire Ins. Co. v. Kingsbury, 105
A.D.2d 519, 520 (3d Dep’t 1984)).
It is undisputed that Carpenter crawled under a truck to investigate an
ongoing problem with the truck’s transmission. That alone may constitute
“maintenance”: Inspecting a faulty transmission is a kind of work performed on
“an intrinsic part of the mechanism of the car.” See id. But even if it does not,
such an inspection indisputably has some “connection with” or is “incident to” the
“performance of work” on “an intrinsic part of the mechanism of the car” because
inspection of a faulty mechanism is the first step in actual repairs. See Maroney, 5
N.Y.3d at 472. Indeed, a few hours after Carpenter’s accident, Northeast’s owner
fixed the truck enough to drive it to a mechanic. Therefore, Carpenter’s injuries
arose out of the “maintenance” of Northeast’s truck.
Carpenter insists that Guishard stands for a different principle. Specifically,
Carpenter contends that “maintenance” requires some kind of active repair on the
5 vehicle at issue, so merely inspecting Northeast’s truck “without tools, parts, or an
intent to fix anything” did not amount to maintenance. Appellant’s Br. 13. But
in Guishard, the New York Court of Appeals held that “riveting metal to a van for
the purpose of converting it into a ‘Mr. Softee’ ice cream truck” did not constitute
maintenance because that work “transform[ed] the auto’s function[.]” Guishard,
9 N.Y.3d at 901–02. Or in other words, the Guishard Court held that certain kinds
of repairs have so little to do with a vehicle’s “intrinsic part[s]” that the plain
meaning of “maintenance” does not include them. Guishard did not confine
“maintenance” to the exact moment a repair is made. And we see no reason to
do so where, as here, Carpenter was injured while inspecting “an intrinsic part of
the mechanism of the car” (the transmission), and that inspection led to actual
repairs to that mechanism. The district court did not err when it granted
summary judgment to Main Street on that basis.
6 We have considered Carpenter’s remaining arguments and conclude that
they are without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district
court.
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