Can Uninsured Motorist Insurance Cover a Shooting?
A recent lawsuit involved the application of an uninsured motorist (“UM”) policy to a shooting incident. The plaintiff sought to recover UM benefits after being shot by unknown assailants while she was sitting in a vehicle insured by Travelers Insurance. The trial court denied Travelers’ motion for summary judgment on UM coverage, and Travelers appealed.
Background
On June 7, 2021, the plaintiff was a passenger in a car. She and the driver had visited a park and were stopped in a line of cars waiting to exit the park. Unidentified assailants shot at their car from another vehicle, striking the plaintiff in the foot. The perpetrators were never identified, and she had no reason to believe she or anyone in her vehicle was targeted for any specific reason.
The plaintiff was transported to the emergency room and eventually had surgery to repair damage to her foot caused by the shooting.
In July 2022, the plaintiff filed a negligence action against John Doe. The driver’s car was insured through Travelers (via the driver’s parents, who owned the vehicle). In connection with her lawsuit, she served Travelers as the uninsured motorist (“UM”) insurance carrier. Travelers answered the complaint, and after conducting discovery, filed a motion for summary judgment.
The policy at issue provides UM coverage only for bodily injury that “arises out of the ownership, maintenance or use of an uninsured motor vehicle.” Travelers argued that there was no causal connection between the plaintiff’s injury and the use of an uninsured motor vehicle.
The trial court granted in part Travelers’ motion, finding that the plaintiff couldn’t recover punitive damages or attorney fees from Travelers under Georgia law. However, the court denied the motion in part, finding that Travelers failed to show no causal connection exists between the plaintiff’s injury and the use of the uninsured motor vehicle. Travelers appealed.
The Court of Appeals Reverses
Travelers argued that the court erred in finding that a question of fact existed when the only issue in dispute is the legal interpretation of the insurance policy. The Court of Appeals agreed. Judge Elizabeth Gobeil wrote that the material facts here were undisputed:
- The plaintiff was in vehicle that was insured by Travelers when unknown assailants shot and injured her from another vehicle.
- The identity of the assailants and their motivation for the shooting was unknown.
- The vehicle in which the plaintiff was a passenger was insured by Travelers (subject to the terms of the insurance policy).
- There were no additional issues of fact for a jury to resolve before the court may interpret the insurance policy.
Accordingly, the trial court erred in denying summary judgment to Travelers in this respect. The policy in question states in pertinent part:
INSURING AGREEMENT
We will pay compensatory damages, in excess of any deductible that applies to this coverage as shown in the Declarations, which an “insured” is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an “uninsured motor vehicle” because of “bodily injury” or “property damage”:
- Sustained by an “insured”; and
- Caused by an accident.
The owner’s or operator’s liability for these damages must arise out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the “uninsured motor vehicle”.
The trial court found that Travelers failed to show a causal connection exists between the plaintiff’s injury and the use of the uninsured motor vehicle. Travelers argued that the trial court erred in two respects. First, Travelers argued that it was not the party bearing the burden of proof on this claim; so, it wasn’t required to affirmatively demonstrate a lack of a causal connection. The Court of Appeals agreed. Therefore, Travelers’ failure to affirmatively disprove a causal connection was not a proper reason to deny it summary judgment.
Second, Travelers argued that the trial court — seeking merely a “causal connection” between the plaintiff’s injury and the use of an uninsured motor vehicle — misstated the test the Court has applied in interpreting similar insurance policy provisions. Again, the Court agreed.
Judge Gobeil wrote in her opinion for the panel of the Court of Appeals that the plaintiff wasn’t seeking coverage based on her mere presence in a vehicle when she was injured. Rather, she was seeking UM coverage based on the shooter’s presence in his vehicle (or the vehicle in which he was riding, presumably uninsured) when he caused the injury.
However, the judge said the Court saw no reason why the test would be any different in these circumstances: the UM provision under which the plaintiff was seeking coverage also required that the injury “arise out of the ownership, maintenance or use of” a motor vehicle. Accordingly, the plaintiff was required to show a connection between the use of the shooter’s vehicle and the discharge of the firearm and resulting injury such as to render it more likely that the one grew out of the other.
Here, beyond the shooter’s presence in a vehicle, there was no causal connection between the injury and how the shooter’s vehicle was being used. The shooter didn’t use the vehicle to cause the injury. He used a firearm. In addition, the plaintiff wasn’t injured by any use of the shooter’s vehicle. She was injured by the bullet that struck her.
Contrary to the plaintiff’s argument, the fact that the shooter was transported away from the scene after the shooting in the vehicle didn’t create a causal connection between the injury and the use of the vehicle. Nothing about the movement of the vehicle caused or aggravated her injury, Judge Gobeil opined.
As a result, the Court found insufficient evidence connecting the plaintiff’s injury and the use of an uninsured motor vehicle. Therefore, her injury fell outside the policy’s terms of UM coverage, and the trial court erred in denying summary judgment to Travelers. The judgment was reversed. Travelers Prop. Cas. Ins. Co. v. Lipsey, 2024 Ga. App. LEXIS 463 (Ga. App. November 1, 2024).
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