Well, here's a conundrum if ever I heard one.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday heard arguments over whether car insurance should pay out benefits to a woman who caught a sexually transmitted disease from a policyholder in his insured vehicle.
. . .
"Upon review of the parties’ arguments, the court finds that consensual sexual relations inside a car do not constitute a 'use' of the automobile within the meaning of the subject policy," the judge wrote in his decision.
But M.O. and Brauner appealed to the Eighth Circuit to have the district court's decision reversed. The couple contends that the language of Brauner's insurance policy is so broad as to justify M.O.'s bodily injury claim ... Attorneys for GEICO disagree ... A three-judge panel consisting of U.S. Circuit Judges Steven Colloton, Michael Melloy and Raymond Gruender heard these arguments in court on Wednesday.
The judges questioned M.O.'s attorney, David Mayer, on whether his client's argument would make GEICO responsible for every unwanted pregnancy that might have occurred in an automobile.
"I don't believe that's a cause of action but that's a good question," Mayer responded.
. . .
... by quibbling over the meaning of what is an "appropriate" use of a car, Beck told the judges, "you are turning what is an automobile policy into a general liability policy without restriction."
There's more at the link.
If one takes the plaintiff's view to its logical conclusion, if a woman becomes pregnant after sex in a car, doesn't that make the car insurer liable for any and all medical costs incurred by the child during its entire life? After all, none of those costs would have been incurred if pregnancy had not occurred. Does that mean the insurer can insist that the woman must have an abortion, so as to avoid those costs?
Simple basic common sense should surely dictate that the insurer is not liable. However, this is the USA, where litigation has long since lost all sense of balance and reasonableness. Who knows how it'll turn out?
What's next? A clause in insurance policies stating that no teenagers should ever be allowed to use the vehicle - or even get into it - except under the policyholder's direct and immediate supervision, for fear of the carnage that might result?
Peter
12 comments:
I've still never heard an explanation why each of us who pay for insurance is for the other person involved in the car accident and not ourselves. If I want to pay for good insurance, that should benefit me. Let the other person's insurance cover their own damages.
Uninsured motorist aside (which in south Texas should be deemed mandatory - WHOLE LOT of uninsured drivers down here), I just don't get it.
So is having sex in your automobile in the operators manual? Is there a safety warning not to have sex while the automobile is running? No? Case closed.
Reminds me of
Was you that did the pushin?
Left the stains upon the cushion?
Footprints on the dashboard upside down?
If it was you sly woodpecker
Defiled my littler girl Rebecca
Then you'd better leave this town,
Yes 'twas I that did the pushin',
Left the stains upon the cushion,
Footprints on the dashboard upside down.
But ever since I screwed your daughter
I've had pains while passing water
Which makes us kind of even don't you feel?
The attorneys for the plaintiff, and the district court judge who failed to dismiss this suit as frivolous in 0.2 seconds, should be drawn and quartered while alive, using draft horses.
The event should be televised, and the video made mandatory viewing in order to sit for the bar in all 50 states.
The plaintiff should be beaten with rebar rods from their house to the nearest international border, and then expelled from the country in perpetuity.
I think I'm pro-choice again after reading this. Yeesh.
Insurance!?? Who Cares about Insurance?? It's Obviously the car Manufacturer that is responsible! Idiots..
Sounds like they had sex multiple times in several locations.
As a defense I would have gone with the impossibility of proving which act of sexual intercourse, including the first, was the "kill shot" so to speak.
You would need repeatable studies that show, for HPV, that a one time contact was 100% capable of causing antigen formation. Tough because most couples have sex more frequently than than the resulting proofs for infection can be confirmed, and random post contact studies cannot rule out previous infection.
Plus, can she prove no prior exposure and that the "magic encounter" occured in the car?
Also, millions of people have HPV infections and very, very few get brain cancer. If we are both in a crowd and I trod on your toe it isn't a big problem unless you have very serious diabetes. In which case you could lose your foot or even below the knee. But is that my fault? How do we proportion the liability for something as rare as one in a million events on one side vs the other party not even knowing (much less declaring) this weakness that I am now responsible for violating?
...Ghetto lottery attempt...
Dick the Butcher. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Yet another instance demonstrating how corrupt, pointless and destructive our "judicial" system has become.
“Loy-Yers” define the world in their terms then forever argue the meaning of those terms as billable hour generators. Shakespeare was correct.
So homeowners ins could be forced to cover any disease contracted in a house? I don’t think that’s what’s insured.
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