Prudential Insurance Company of America v. Lucas

456 S.W.2d 429, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2386
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 24, 1970
Docket11763
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 456 S.W.2d 429 (Prudential Insurance Company of America v. Lucas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Prudential Insurance Company of America v. Lucas, 456 S.W.2d 429, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2386 (Tex. Ct. App. 1970).

Opinion

O’QUINN, Justice.

Decision in this case turns on whether a pickup truck being driven by the insured at the time of his death was a private automobile of pleasure car design not in use for commercial or occupational purposes within the meaning of the terms of an insurance policy.

The life insurance policy involved provided for payment of $15,000 upon death of the insured. It also afforded an additional benefit of $3,000 if the insured died while driving or riding in a “private automobile of pleasure car design (including station wagon or similar body types) not in use for commercial or occupational purposes by such person.”

Lewis P. Lucas, the assured, was killed in a collision in Blanco County on June 19, 1968, while driving his pickup truck in which he and his family were traveling from their home in Hico, Texas, to Seguin, Texas, to visit his wife’s parents.

Appellant insurance company paid the beneficiary $15,000 pursuant to the policy, but refused to pay the additional benefit of $3,000 on the basis that the insured at the time of his death was driving a pickup truck rather than an automobile of pleasure car design. Appellant on appeal makes no contention that at the time of the accident the pickup was being used for commercial or occupational purposes.

The case was tried before the court without a jury, and at the conclusion of the trial the court entered judgment for appel-lee, surviving spouse of the insured, for the $3,000 benefit plus penalty of twelve percent and attorney’s fees.

Pertinent provisions of the policy affording the additional benefit are expressed as set out:

“NON-OCCUPATIONAL VEHICLE ACCIDENT DEATH BENEFIT. If an Accidental Death Benefit is payable, as specified in the Accidental Death Benefit provisions, by reason of the death of the Insured * * * and if the required due proof shows that the injury resulting in the accidental death was sustained by such person (a) while driving or riding in a private automobile of pleasure car design (including station wagon or similar body types) not in use for commercial or occupational purposes by such person * * the Company will pay, in addition to all other benefits provided by the policy, a Non-occupational Vehicle Accident Death Benefit. * * * ”

Appellant contends that the right to recover depends upon the nature of the vehicle because the policy language provides for payment if insured should be killed while driving a “private automobile of pleasure car design.” The question is, appellant argues, whether the Lucas pickup truck was an “automobile of pleasure car design.”

Appellee insists that under the terms of the “Non-occupational Vehicle Accident Benefit” provision, of the policy the primary risk appellant insured against was accidental death resulting from injuries sus *431 tained in a vehicle not being used at the time as an occupational vehicle. Appellee argues that the benefit would not be payable if the insured had been fatally injured while in a passenger car being used at the time of the accident in carrying out activities of the insured’s occupation.

“There can be no question,” appellee urges, “under the evidence in this record that the 1967 Ford pickup was used and designed for pleasure use,” and that if appellant had intended to exclude coverage for injuries sustained “in vehicles such as pickups, it would have been a simple procedure to write such an exclusion into the policy.”

The record shows that the insured purchased a 1967 Ford half-ton pickup in November, 1967 prior to the fatal accident in June, 1968. The pickup was the only automobile owned by the Lucas family and the vehicle was used solely as a family automobile. The pickup was not used for business or occupational purposes and was fitted with a six-foot cargo bed which was the shortest available.

Mrs. Lucas testified that she and her husband decided to buy the pickup because her parents lived on the Guadalupe River and in order to get to the river it was necessary to travel over “a very rough road.” The Lucas family spent their spare time fishing and hunting. Mrs. Lucas testified, “We could get to the river easier with the pickup than with the car.”

The Lucas family, consisting of the insured and his wife and their three small boys, were in the pickup going to visit her parents, and “to spend Saturday and Sunday afternoon on the river,” when the collision occurred in which Lucas was killed.

The language of the insurance policy with which we are concerned is the statement that the company agrees to pay an additional benefit if proof shows that “ * * * accidental death was sustained * * * while driving * * * a private automobile of pleasure car design (including station wagon or similiar body types) not in use for commercial or occupational purposes by such person * * *” (Emphasis added).

In Pennell v. United Insurance Company, 150 Tex. 541, 243 S.W.2d 572 (1951), the Supreme Court of Texas, with four justices dissenting, held that a jeep was not within the coverage of an insurance policy providing payment of double indemnity when injury was sustained by the insured “while driving or riding within any private passenger automobile exclusively of the pleasure car type.” The Supreme Court held that the word “exclusively” did not render the description ambiguous, but gave emphasis to the description as an automobile of the pleasure car type.

“We believe,” the Court declared, “the words clearly mean that the double indemnity provision applies only to automobiles that are constructed and intended to be used exclusively for pleasure, and does not apply to automobiles constructed and intended to be used for freight carrying or agricultural or industrial purposes, and does not apply to automobiles constructed and intended to be used both for pleasure and for freight carrying or agricultural or industrial purposes.”

The Court pointed out that no issue of fact was raised as to the design and construction of jeeps and the purposes for which they were sold and intended to be used. “The testimony and the photographs of the jeep in the record,” the Court observed, “show that it is a rugged, uncouth vehicle without beauty of line or body, and with no suggestion of comfort, and obviously intended for hard service rather than for pleasure.”

The Supreme Court agreed with the holding of the court of civil appeals in that case that “as a matter of law the jeep involved here is not a private passenger automobile ‘exclusively of the pleasure car type.’ ”

Whether a pickup truck was a “private passenger automobile” within an exclusion *432 of a policy was held to be an issue of material fact requiring reversal of summary judgment in Johnson v. Home Indemnity Company, 401 S.W.2d 871 (Tex.Civ.App., Texarkana, 1966, writ ref. n. r. e.). The policy defined “private passenger automobile” as a “four-wheel private passenger, station wagon or jeep type automobile.”

In that case the Texarkana Court cited Mutual Benefit Health and Accident Association v.

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Bluebook (online)
456 S.W.2d 429, 1970 Tex. App. LEXIS 2386, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/prudential-insurance-company-of-america-v-lucas-texapp-1970.