Accident Is One Occurrence Notwithstanding Independent And Separate Negligent Acts By Multiple Drivers
AUTO-OWNERS INSURANCE CO. v. MUNROE (July 22, 2010)
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Joshua Munroe was driving his tractor-trailer northbound on an Illinois highway when he approached three southbound tractor-trailers, all owned by Wayne Wilkins Trucking. The middle truck attempted to pass but was unable to do so successfully. Munroe's truck first struck the middle truck and then collided head on with the trailing truck. Munroe suffered very serious burns and injuries. The southbound trucks were all insured under a single policy issued by Auto-Owners Insurance Company. The policy had a $1 million per occurrence limit and included a combined limit provision which limited its liability to $1 million per occurrence regardless of the number of vehicles involved in the accident. Munroe settled with the insurers for the million dollar limit, less the amount paid in property damage. The insurance company agreed to file a declaratory judgment action -- Munroe reserved the right to seek additional damages if they court ruled that coverage exceeded the million dollars. Judge Baker (C.D. Ill.) granted summary judgment to Auto-Owners. Munroe appeals.
In their opinion, Judges Ripple, Manion, and Sykes affirmed. The Court had no difficulty in first concluding that the insurance policy was not ambiguous and limited coverage to $1 million per occurrence. Only if there were multiple occurrences would the coverage exceed $1 million. Illinois uses the "cause theory" in analyzing the number of occurrences. Under that theory, there must be multiple "separate and intervening human acts" to create multiple occurrences. Here, although Munroe alleged that each of the three drivers was individually and separately negligent, the accident was a single, uninterrupted event without intervening causes. It was thus a single occurrence. The Court also rejected Munroe's argument that the Motor Carriers Act and the MCS-90 endorsement required combined coverage of $2.25 million. The Court was "skeptical" of the argument that the endorsement applied on a per vehicle basis but found it unnecessary to decide that question. By its own terms, the endorsement is triggered only by a final judgment. With no final judgment, the endorsement does not apply.
