Implied Permission for Use of Auto
April 22, 2013
The daughter of a driver killed in a motor vehicle accident brought an action against the defendant driver and that driver's auto insurer brought a declaratory judgment action denying coverage for the accident. This case is American Standard Insurance Company v. Stinson, 2012 WL 5207520.
William Stinson worked at a car dealership owned by his father. Stinson rode his bike to the dealership, forced open the dealership door and a safe containing dealer license plates, took a set of keys, and drove a 2001 Lincoln off the lot. Shortly thereafter, Stinson crashed into a vehicle driven by Young, who died as a result of the collision. Young's daughter filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Stinson.
At the time of the accident, the dealership was insured by American Standard Insurance Company. The dealership policy noted that an insured person included the named insured and a relative, but did not include the following: any person, other than a relative, using your insured car without your permission; any person, other than a relative, using your insured car with your permission, but who exceeds their scope of that permission; or any person using a vehicle without the permission of the person having lawful possession. The insurer denied coverage based on these clauses and filed a declaratory judgment action, asserting that, because Stinson drove the Lincoln without permission of the vehicle's owner (the father or the father dealership), the policy did not apply.
The trial court granted the insurer's motion for summary judgment and this appeal followed.
Young's daughter claimed that the trial court erred because the undefined phrase “any person” is ambiguous and must be interpreted against the insurer. The appeals court noted that the policy defined an insured person to include Stinson, but in the same clauses excluded from that definition “any person using a vehicle without the permission of the person having lawful possession”. Giving this language its plain meaning, the court held that the only reasonable construction of the policy provision is to deny coverage to any person who drives another's vehicle without that person's permission. The appeals court ruled that the trial court properly granted summary judgment to the insurer because the record demonstrated that Stinson was using the Lincoln without permission of the person having lawful possession of it.
The daughter also argued that a genuine issue of material fact exists regarding whether Stinson had implied permission to drive the Lincoln, and thus, was covered by the policy. The court said that implied permission to use an auto for purposes of determining insurance coverage is permission that is not verbally expressed, but provable by circumstantial evidence. Implied permission is determined from the facts and circumstances of the case and usually arises from a course of conduct of the parties over a period of time.
The facts showed that Stinson drove dealership cars on public roadways to refuel them and to help his father transport vehicles from auctions to the dealership. However, the facts also showed that Stinson used dealership vehicles prior to this accident without permission and that the father then forbade Stinson from driving dealership cars. The father also confiscated Stinson's keys to the dealership and informed him that he could no longer be present at the dealership outside of business hours.
In light of these undisputed facts, the court concluded that the facts do not demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Stinson had implied permission to drive the Lincoln. The record showed that Stinson and his father did not have a common practice or course of conduct that would have created implied permission. To the contrary, the father's actions created an express intention to forbid Stinson from driving dealership cars.
The judgment of the trial court was affirmed.
Editor's Note: The Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, ruled that the policy language and the facts of the situation clearly applied in this instance to properly deny coverage to Stinson. Stinson took a dealership car without permission even after the owner of the dealership (his father) expressly forbade this. Also, the common practice or course of action here between the father and Stinson showed that no implied permission existed.