State Farm Fire & Casualty Insurance v. First National Bank ex rel. Estate of Murdock

969 F.2d 521, 1992 WL 181153
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJuly 30, 1992
DocketNo. 91-2640
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 969 F.2d 521 (State Farm Fire & Casualty Insurance v. First National Bank ex rel. Estate of Murdock) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Farm Fire & Casualty Insurance v. First National Bank ex rel. Estate of Murdock, 969 F.2d 521, 1992 WL 181153 (7th Cir. 1992).

Opinions

MANION, Circuit Judge.

In 1981, Lawrence Bayer purchased a Personal Liability Umbrella Policy from State Farm Fire and Casualty Company. The original policy was for one year but the policy contained a provision automatically renewing the policy for each succeeding year.

The policy contained several exclusions, including a “business operations” exclusion. That exclusion provided:

We will not provide coverage:
6. For a loss caused by your business operations unless underlying insurance listed on the Declarations Page provides coverage for the loss. This exclusion will not apply to your private automobile or watercraft for incidental business use if:
a. your underlying policy applies to the loss, and;
b. the automobile or watercraft is not for hire.

The policy’s declarations page did not list any specific underlying insurance policies. Instead, the declarations page set out four categories of underlying coverage — “Automobile Liability,” “Recreational Motor Vehicle Liability,” “Personal -Liability,” and “Watercraft Liability” — and set out the minimum amount of coverage required to be provided under each category.

Some time after Bayer purchased the umbrella policy, he acquired a Kenworth tractor-trailer to use in his occupation as a truck driver. On February 11, 1988, Bayer was hauling a load to Georgia in the Ken-worth tractor-trailer. While southbound on [523]*523Interstate 69 in Indiana, Bayer’s truck collided with a car driven by Stacy Murdock. Murdock was seriously injured in the accident. Her passenger, Karen Skinner, died at the scene.

The administrators of Skinner’s estate and the guardian of Murdock’s estate (Mur-dock apparently having been rendered incompetent by the injuries she suffered) sued Bayer in state court. State Farm subsequently filed an action in federal court against Bayer and the estates seeking a declaration that it had no duty under the personal umbrella policy to indemnify Bayer in the state court action. After both sides filed motions, the district court granted summary judgment for State Farm. The estates filed a motion under Fed. R.Civ.P. 59 to amend the judgment. The district court denied that motion, and the estates now appeal.

The tractor-trailer was covered by a separate $5 million liability insurance policy. In its original order granting summary judgment, the district court held that the business operations exclusion applied to losses caused by the tractor-trailer because the underlying insurance was not “listed on the Declarations Page.” The court correctly refused to say that the specific policy was not listed, since the declarations page lists only types of insurance, not specific policies. The estates argued that the policy covering the tractor-trailer fell into the category of “automobile liability” insurance. The court, however, stated that the policy covering the tractor-trailer was not “automobile liability” insurance because “[a] reasonable person would not consider the Kenworth tractor-trailer to be an automobile.”

This reasoning is not persuasive given the umbrella policy’s definition of “automobile” as “a land motor, vehicle, trailer, or semi-trailer.” By this definition, the tractor-trailer was an “automobile” under the umbrella policy. State Farm protests that the policy covering the tractor-trailer was a commercial lines policy, which is completely different from an automobile liability policy. That may be true in general, although State Farm offers no authority for its assertion. But our job is to interpret the umbrella policy as the language in it is used, not to search for some hidden meaning in that language based on unsupported assertions about what those words might mean in some other context. See Orkin Exterminating Co. v. Walters, 466 N.E.2d 55, 60 (Ind.App.1984) (when a matter is expressly covered by a written instrument, the instrument’s unambiguous provisions control and the parties’ intent will be determined from within the instrument’s “four corners”). A policy that covers liability caused by the tractor-trailer, an “automobile” under the umbrella policy’s definition, is a policy covering automobile liability. It is therefore an “automobile liability” policy under the terms of the umbrella policy. Losses caused by the tractor-trailer are therefore covered by insurance “listed on the Declarations Page.”

In its order denying the estates’ Rule 59 motion, the district court accepted the estates’ argument that the tractor-trailer was an “automobile” as defined by the umbrella policy. But the court did not accept the estates’ conclusion that the umbrella policy covered the loss in this case. The court pointed out that Bayer had not listed the tractor-trailer on his insurance application (which was no surprise since Bayer did not own the tractor-trailer when he purchased the policy). According to the court, State Farm had a right to rely on the information Bayer provided, and Bayer had a duty to supplement that information when it materially changed. The court thought the estates’ interpretation of the policy unreasonable, finding that “[i]t is implausible that State Farm would bargain to provide umbrella insurance without knowledge of the nature of the motor vehicle covered. One could not reasonably expect secret commercial trucking activities to be covered by the umbrella policy.”-

State Farm trumpets this argument in its brief, but this argument, which is not based on any particular language in the policy, is no more persuasive than the argument that the tractor-trailer was not an “automobile.” While a material misstatement in an insurance application may be grounds for deny[524]*524ing coverage, State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. v. Price, 181 Ind.App. 258, 396 N.E.2d 134, 136 (1979), the district court cited no authority for its statement that Bayer was obliged to inform State Farm of changed conditions. Nothing in the policy placed any duty on Bayer to inform State Farm when he purchased a new motor vehicle, whether it be for business or pleasure. Since the policy imposed other specific notification duties on Bayer — namely, the duty to notify State Farm of any accident, or any claim or suit against him — the policy’s silence about any duty to inform State Farm about acquiring a new automobile reinforces the conclusion that the policy imposes no such duty.

Besides some duty to give notice, the court’s reasoning was also premised on the notion that the policy covered only vehicles that Bayer owned at the time he completed his application and that were disclosed by him in the application. But this notion has no basis in the policy’s language either. In fact, the policy provided for automatic renewal. Because conditions change over time, the fact that the policy provided for automatic renewal, that is, renewal without reapplieation, indicates that the policy contemplated changing conditions such as the acquisition of new vehicles.

State Farm drafted the umbrella policy, and it could easily have avoided the problems it now faces by providing in the policy that the policy would cover new activities or vehicles only if Bayer informed State Farm of those new risks.

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Bluebook (online)
969 F.2d 521, 1992 WL 181153, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-farm-fire-casualty-insurance-v-first-national-bank-ex-rel-estate-ca7-1992.