State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance v. Williamson

331 F.2d 517
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedApril 16, 1964
DocketNo. 18783
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 331 F.2d 517 (State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance v. Williamson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance v. Williamson, 331 F.2d 517 (9th Cir. 1964).

Opinion

MERRILL, Circuit Judge.

In this Arizona diversity action, appellant seeks a declaratory judgment upon the question of its liability under the “Omnibus Clause”1 of a policy of automobile insurance. At issue is the question whether the operator of an automobile involved in an accident was using the car with the permission of the named insured.

The court determined that no express permission had been granted and sent the case to the jury upon the issue of the existence or nonexistence of implied permission. Verdict was rendered against the appellant upon this issue.

Appellant had moved for a directed verdict at the close of the evidence. This motion was denied, as was a subsequent motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Appellant here asserts that there was no evidence to warrant submission of the question of implied permission to the jury, and no evidence to support the jury’s verdict that permission impliedly had been granted.

It must be conceded that upon the record appellant’s case is a strong one, and that of appellees is extremely weak. In our judgment, however, there was sufficient evidence in appellees’ favor to create an issue upon which reasonable minds might differ.

The insured persons, Mr. and Mrs. Judd, permitted their twenty-year-old son, Kenneth, to use the family car. He, in turn, on one occasion permitted a friend, appellee Alice Willene Williamson (known as “Willene”) to operate the car. On that occasion she was involved in the accident.

The father, mother and Kenneth all testified that Kenneth had been expressly prohibited from permitting anyone else to use the car. Willene testified that she knew of this prohibition.

On the other side of the ledger were these facts:

For eight months prior to the accident Kenneth had been provided with his own set of keys. During a period of two years, when he was attending Arizona State University, he had been given blanket authority to use the car to go to college.

While Kenneth had been frequently cautioned respecting his use of the car and had operated the car under a set of rules laid down by his parents, during the years when he had been using the car he had frequently shown a disregard for these rules. He had, with his parents’ knowledge, received several citations for speeding, and had been involved in two to four accidents. He had, without permission and contrary to instructions, taken the car to Mexico for an over[519]*519night trip. His parents knew of his pattern of disregard. While they testified that he had been disciplined for violation of the rules (including depriving him of the use of the car for brief periods), they had thereafter continued to allow him to use the car.

The relationship between Kenneth and Willene was apparently a close one at the time of the accident. They were next-door neighbors, Willene living with her parents in a rental unit on the Judd property. They were dating, and Kenneth was permitted to use the car on such occasions. About a month after the accident they were married. The Judds knew that Willene could operate a car as they had seen her driving her family car.

We turn from the facts to legal principle, and start with the proposition that the omnibus clause, for reasons of public policy, is to be liberally construed.

Jurd v. Pacific Indemnity Company (1962) 57 Cal.2d 699, 703, 21 Cal.Rptr. 793, 795, 371 P.2d 569, 571, states as follows:

“Provision for omnibus coverage in an automobile liability insurance policy reflects a legislative policy to protect the public when a motor vehicle is operated by one other than the insured owner with his consent. * * * In those jurisdictions where the insertion of an omnibus clause is required by statute in a liability insurance policy, it is liberally construed so as to effectuate the manifest public policy of broadening the insurance coverage.”

. . , , , , , „ Arizona has such a statute.2

By the omnibus clause an insurer authorizes the named insured to extend coverage by granting to others a permission to use his car.

Once permission has been granted (as in tMs case) the C0Verage of those whom permjttee in turn permits to use the car wi]1 depend on the scope of the au_ thority with which the named insured has vested his permittee. The question is whether the named insured has authorized his permittee in turn to extend coverage by allowing others to use the car.

. Upon this question the rule m general is stated in Baesler v. Globe Indemnity Co. 33 N.J. 148, 162 A.2d 854, 856-857 follows:

"It Is a weP established general that when the named insured gives another permission to use his insured automobile, without more, the permittee is not thereby authorized to allow another to use it. And if he does, the second permittee’s use is not ‘with the permission of the nanfi. insured/ as those words are USf.d m a comprehensive liability P° lcy' [Authorities cited.]
“The rule is subject, however, to a broad qualification m terms of the scop® °fcthe name.d insu*eds mitial fant ?f Permission. The factual determination must be made, m every case where the first permittee permits another to use the insured automobile, whether the initial grant of Permission was broad enough to 11Kdude an liaphe* ®rant.to tbe re® °/f a^rity to give another use,of *be automobile and thus to render tbe la«er an additional ln sured under the omnlbus clause of the policy. [Authorities cited.]
...... Thus, it is almost universally held in the modern cases that where the named insured grants his per-[520]*520mittee broad-and unfettered dominion over his insured automobile, he also impliedly authorizes his per-mittee to allow a third person to use it, and thus to render him an additional insured. [Authorities cited.] The first permittee, by being granted complete dominion over the insured automobile, is put in the shoes of the named insured, and therefore his permittee is held to be the named insured’s permittee. [Authorities cited.]”

It may well be disputed that such “broad and unfettered dominion” was granted to Kenneth in this case as to place him in the shoes of his parents. However, it does not necessarily follow that without such broad general powers of use, Kenneth was without implied authority to permit Willene to operate the car.

If an owner reasonably should anticipate that his permittee will put the car to a particular use, permission to operate the car, without more, can be found to encompass permission for that use. See 7 Appleman, Insurance Law & Practice (1962) § 4367, at 312, § 4368. If an owner reasonably should anticipate that, in view of the scope and nature of the permission granted (even if less than unfettered dominion), and because of the permittee’s relationship to another, the permittee will allow that other to use the car, the owner’s permission, without more, can be found to encompass permission for that use.3

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331 F.2d 517, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-farm-mutual-automobile-insurance-v-williamson-ca9-1964.