Walter v. Dunlap

368 F.2d 118, 1966 U.S. App. LEXIS 4459
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedNovember 7, 1966
DocketNos. 15814, 15815
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 368 F.2d 118 (Walter v. Dunlap) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Walter v. Dunlap, 368 F.2d 118, 1966 U.S. App. LEXIS 4459 (3d Cir. 1966).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

HASTIE, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is being contested by two insurance companies to determine their correlative obligations in connection with a loss for which a court has found their respective insureds jointly liable.

Stanley Grimm, the owner of a tractor-trailer and the regular employer of the vehicle’s driver, Robert Dunlap, contracted to lease the vehicle and supply a driver to Midwest Emery Freight Systems, Inc. (hereinafter called “Midwest”) for a single journey upon which Midwest undertook to transport a load of salt for its customers from a point in Ohio to a point in Pennsylvania. Midwest is an interstate trucker, certificated by the Interstate Commerce Commission to transport commodities between Ohio and Pennsylvania.

During the journey thus arranged, a fatal collision occurred because of the negligence of the driver, Dunlap. The decedent’s administratrix, invoking federal diversity jurisdiction, sued Midwest, Grimm and Dunlap in the District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Pursuant to a jury’s verdict, the court entered a money judgment for the plaintiff against both Midwest and Grimm,1 with each granted contribution against the other. Judgment was also entered for the plaintiff against Dunlap. In addition, Midwest was granted a right of indemnity against Dunlap.

Having thus become a judgment creditor, the plaintiff then caused writs of attachment to issue against All-State Insurance Co., Grimm’s insurer, and Security Mutual Casualty Co., Midwest’s insurer. On motions of these insurers for summary judgment, the court entered judgment against Security Mutual and discharged All-State. Security Mutual now appeals from that judgment.

Decision depends upon the meaning and application of certain language in the two policies, which are identical in their relevant provisions. Each is a comprehensive liability automobile insurance policy. Both contain the same provisions concerning owned and hired commercial vehicles and concerning primary and excess insurance.

With respect to such commercial vehicles, each policy states that “the unqualified word ‘insured’ includes the named insured and also includes any person while using an owned automobile or a hired automobile and any person or organization legally responsible for the use thereof, provided the actual use of the automobile is by the named insured or with his permission”. This language without more would cause both policies to cover Dunlap’s use of the truck in this case, and it is admitted that Grimm’s All-State policy does so. However, it is argued that certain policy exceptions have the effect of excluding Dunlap from the coverage of Midwest’s Security Mutual policy.

One of the exceptions stated in each policy provides that the insurance shall not cover a person, other than the named insured or his “employee”,2 while “engaged in the business of transporting property by automobile * * * unless the accident occurs while such automobile is being used exclusively in the business of the named insured and over a route the named insured is authorized to serve by federal or public authority * * While in this case Midwest is covered as the named insured, it is argued that the quoted exception excludes Dunlap on [120]*120the theory that the truck was being used in Grimm’s business as well as Midwest’s, not exclusively in Midwest’s as the policy requires. This argument is said to be substantiated by the judicial finding in the plaintiff’s suit against Grimm, Midwest and Dunlap that, in driving the truck, the lent servant Dunlap was the agent of both Grimm and Midwest.

We think that the fact that Grimm retained a sufficient right of control over Dunlap to warrant a finding that the master-servant relationship persisted is not inconsistent with the conclusion, established by the other facts of the case, that at the time of the accident the truck was being used exclusively in the business of Midwest. Neither is this problem of construing a clause in an insurance contract controlled, as the appellant urges, by other cases3 which on facts similar to ours reason that the lender of a servant retains sufficient authority over him and interest in his conduct to be liable for his torts under the concept of respondeat superior.

An analogy may be helpful here. In common parlance and understanding, after the space in a commercial building has been rented to tenants, the structure is described and viewed as being used in the business of the tenants and not in the business of the landlord. It is the leasing of property to produce income rather than the use made of it while rented which constitutes the lessor’s business. Any control the lessor may reserve over the premises and any employment of a building superintendent and staff are for the maintenance and protection of his property and do not constitute a proprietary involvement in the current use of the building.

By parity of reasoning, the business of Grimm was the renting of vehicles owned by him to others for their use. Any right of control he may have reserved over a driver he supplied to a lessee along with a vehicle was a measure for the safeguarding of his property and the accommodation of the lessee. But this did not make the use of the rented vehicle in hauling for hire the business of the lessor. In this view, leasing property to another and using it for one’s self are simply antithetical concepts.

The contrary view, that a rented vehicle is being “used” in the lessor’s rental business throughout the period of hire is conceptually possible but contrary to our normal and ordinary view of the nature of a lease as transferring the possession and use of the property from lessor to lessee. Moreover, the business of interstate trucking for hire is one in which the present lessor, being unlicensed for that business, could not lawfully engage.

Beyond the foregoing analysis, our interpretation and application of the language of the Security Mutual policy is aided by a well established rule of construction. In ease of doubt and ambiguity, a provision of an insurance policy will be construed against the insurer who drafted the instrument. Blue Anchor Overall Co., Inc. v. Pennsylvania Lumbermens’ Mutual Ins. Co., 1956, 385 Pa. 394, 123 A.2d 413, 59 A.L.R.2d 546; Armon v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 1952, 369 Pa. 465, 87 A.2d 302. One of the most familiar applications of this rule is the construction of exceptions of doubtful scope to avoid any unnecessary narrowing of the principal or general coverage of a policy. Papadell v. Harleysville Mutual Casualty Co., 1963, 411 Pa. 214, 191 A.2d 274; Simon v. Hospital Service Assn. of Pittsburgh, 1960, 192 Pa.Super. 68, 159 A.2d 52. Here this rule reinforces the construction toward which we would incline even without it. We conclude, therefore, that both insurance policies covered Dunlap and the use being made of the truck in the circumstances of this case.

[121]*121It remains to determine how the loss should be apportioned. Each policy contains the following paragraph:

“Other Insurance.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Fireman's Fund Insurance v. Empire Fire & Marine Insurance
155 F. Supp. 2d 429 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 2001)
Connecticut Indemnity Co. v. Stringfellow
956 F. Supp. 553 (M.D. Pennsylvania, 1997)
Township of Springfield v. Ersek
660 A.2d 672 (Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, 1995)
Continental Insurance v. McKain
820 F. Supp. 890 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 1993)
Transit Casualty Insurance v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance
537 F. Supp. 65 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 1982)
Transit Cas. Ins. Co. v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co.
537 F. Supp. 65 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 1982)
Bankers & Shippers Insurance v. James H. Hartman & Son, Inc.
537 F. Supp. 374 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 1982)
Special Jet Services, Inc. v. Federal Insurance
83 F.R.D. 596 (W.D. Pennsylvania, 1979)
Transport Indemnity Co. v. Teter
575 S.W.2d 780 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 1978)
Miller v. Nationwide Insurance
70 Pa. D. & C.2d 338 (Somerset County Court of Common Pleas, 1975)
Bolender v. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company
474 F.2d 1360 (Third Circuit, 1973)
Bolender v. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance
474 F.2d 1360 (Third Circuit, 1973)
Transit Casualty Company v. Gator Systems, Inc.
445 F.2d 813 (Fifth Circuit, 1971)
Baltimore & Pittsburgh Motor Express, Inc. v. Sustrick
286 F. Supp. 524 (W.D. Pennsylvania, 1968)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
368 F.2d 118, 1966 U.S. App. LEXIS 4459, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/walter-v-dunlap-ca3-1966.