The Supreme Court of New Hampshire, affirming a trial court's decision, has ruled that a man was not entitled to coverage under his automobile insurance policy for injuries he allegedly suffered when he was struck by an uninsured vehicle while he was walking to his parked car.
The Case
David Lavoie asserted that he was walking toward his parked vehicle after he finished dinner to retrieve a tire that he had repaired at the request of one of his customers, a dinner companion, when he was hit by another car while crossing the first of two streets he needed to cross to reach his vehicle.
Mr. Lavoie claimed that the insurance policy he had purchased from The Pennsylvania Insurance Companies covered his injuries because he was "occupying" his vehicle at the time.
Pennsylvania Insurance denied his claim, and Mr. Lavoie sued.
The trial court granted summary judgment to Pennsylvania Insurance, finding that, when Mr. Lavoie was injured, he was not insured under the Pennsylvania Insurance policy because he was not "occupying" his vehicle at that time.
The dispute reached the Supreme Court of New Hampshire.
Mr. Lavoie acknowledged that he had severed his connection with his vehicle when he left it to go to dinner. He argued, however, that he had "reconnected" with the vehicle when he began walking toward it after dinner because his "physical orientation was in the direction of the [v]ehicle and his conscious attention was oriented on the [v]ehicle." Mr. Lavoie contended that whether he was "getting in" the vehicle depended not on "a myopic review of the facts" but on his "perspective on where he was going and what he was doing" when he was injured.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court's Decision
The court affirmed.
In its decision, the court explained that the Pennsylvania Insurance policy provided that Mr. Lavoie was insured only if he was "occupying" the insured vehicle at the time of the accident, which the policy defined to mean "in, upon, getting in, on, out or off."
The court noted that whether Mr. Lavoie was "occupying" the vehicle at the time of the injury had to be determined by applying the "vehicle orientation" test. This test, the court continued, required that a claimant be engaged in an activity essential to the use of the vehicle when the accident occurred, but did not require that the claimant have physical contact with the vehicle. "Occupying," the court added, could include the process of moving away from the vehicle to a "place of safety," but did "not include the process of moving away from the vehicle when no unsafe condition exist[ed]."
According to the court, if a claimant had severed connection to the vehicle, then the claimant was no longer occupying the vehicle. Moreover, the court said, to be "occupying" a vehicle, a claimant must be "vehicle-oriented" as opposed to "highway oriented" or "sidewalk oriented." The court pointed out that, "[s]ubtle factual distinctions can make the difference in questions of coverage."
The court assumed in this case – albeit without deciding – that "getting in" a motor vehicle was a "process." The issue, the court explained, was when that process began and what actions it encompassed.
The court then found that Mr. Lavoie's contention "would result in coverage any time a claimant was traveling toward the insured vehicle, regardless of how long the claimant journeyed before reaching the vehicle or what he did during the journey."
The court also pointed out that, during his walk toward his vehicle, Mr. Lavoie's "immediate attention" was "necessarily focused on things other than the vehicle." For example, the court noted, when he was asked where he was looking when he was hit by the uninsured driver, Mr. Lavoie responded that he was looking at the curb that he was about to step on, at the crosswalk, at the other people in the crosswalk, and to make sure that no cars were coming. The court found that although Mr. Lavoie contended that crossing the road was "incidental to his work-related errand, which centered on his use of the insured [v]ehicle," the trial court reasonably could have concluded that, at the time he was injured, Mr. Lavoie was primarily "crosswalk oriented" or "sidewalk oriented," rather than "vehicle oriented."
The court was not persuaded by Mr. Lavoie's argument that he was "engaged in an activity essential to the use of the vehicle" because he was delivering a tire to a customer, reasoning that the fact that his vehicle was necessary for Mr. Lavoie to complete his work-related task did not establish that the activity of crossing the street was "essential to the use of the vehicle."
The court said that Mr. Lavoie's definition of "getting in" a vehicle "could lead to absurd results," such as the conclusion that a person who walked many miles through many obstacles and dangers was nonetheless "getting in" the insured vehicle solely because the person's subjective intent, while walking, was to reach the vehicle.
The court concluded that Mr. Lavoie had not offered a "reasonable alternative definition" of "getting in" or "occupying" and, therefore, had not established that these terms were ambiguous.
The case is Lavoie v. Peninsula Ins. Cos., No. 2018-0711 (N.H. Nov. 8, 2019).
Steven A. Meyerowitz
Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. He may be contacted at [email protected].