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EXCLUSION FOR INJURY DURING UNLOADING AN INSURED TRAILER APPLIED, EVEN THOUGH THE INJURY WAS CAUSED BY A DEFECT IN THE TRAILER.

The First Department determined an exclusion from plaintiff’s “Truckers Policy” issued to Truck-Rite was unambiguous. The policy excluded coverage for injury arising out of loading and unloading trailers covered by the policy. Plaintiff was unloading a trailer when the trailer’s lift gate collapsed. Despite the fact that the injury was caused by a defective part of the trailer, the injury was not covered by the policy:

“Policy exclusions are subject to strict construction and must be read narrowly, and any ambiguities in the insurance policy are to be construed against the insurer. However, unambiguous provisions of insurance contracts will be given their plain and ordinary meaning” … .

“In the context of a policy exclusion, the phrase arising out of is unambiguous, and is interpreted broadly to mean originating from, incident to, or having connection with'” … . To determine the applicability of an “arising out of” exclusion, the Court of Appeals had adopted a “but for” test … . This test is defined as follows “[I]f the plaintiff in an underlying action or proceeding alleges the existence of facts clearly falling within such an exclusion, and none of the causes of action that he or she asserts could exist but for the existence of the excluded activity or state of affairs, the insurer is under no obligation to defend the action”… .

Here, the underlying plaintiff’s accident occurred while he was unloading material from a shipping trailer, an activity clearly encompassed by the exclusion. The fact that his injury was allegedly caused by the defective nature of the trailer lift does not remove the injury from the policy exclusion. “[T]he focus of the inquiry is not on the precise cause of the accident but the general nature of the operation in the course of which the injury was sustained'” … . “[T]he phrase arising out of’ . . . requires only that there be some causal relationship between the injury and the risk for which coverage is provided” … . Such a causal relationship between the injury and exclusion clearly exists here and requires dismissal of the complaint. Country-Wide Ins. Co. v Excelsior Ins. Co., 2017 NY Slip Op 00718, 1st Dept 2-2-17

 

INSURANCE LAW (EXCLUSION FOR INJURY DURING UNLOADING AN INSURED TRAILER APPLIED, EVEN THOUGH THE INJURY WAS CAUSED BY A DEFECT IN THE TRAILER)/EXCLUSIONS (INSURANCE LAW, EXCLUSION FOR INJURY DURING UNLOADING AN INSURED TRAILER APPLIED, EVEN THOUGH THE INJURY WAS CAUSED BY A DEFECT IN THE TRAILER)

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