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<\/p>\nA Missouri spouse can collect loss-of-consortium damages separate from her husband\u2019s underinsured-motorist benefits, a federal appeals court ruled.<\/p>\n
The 8th<\/sup> U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that an Auto-Owners Mutual Insurance Company auto policy was poorly drafted. Therefore, its ambiguity doesn\u2019t subject two spouses to a single per-person limit as an insurance policy normally would.<\/p>\n Beverly Granger filed a UIM claim for loss-of-consortium damages after her husband, Randy, suffered severe injuries in a car accident where the other driver\u2019s insurer paid out the policy limit of $25,000. The Grangers\u2019 policy with Auto-Owners set a per-person limit of $250,000 and a total limit of $500,000 per \u201coccurrence.\u201d<\/p>\n Auto-Owners paid out its per-person limit of $250,000 to Randy but denied Beverly\u2019s request, claiming that the per-person limit for UIM benefits had already been reached. Beverly\u2019s loss-of-consortium claims were purely derivative of Randy\u2019s bodily injuries, the insurer said.<\/p>\n Auto-Owners filed a lawsuit in district court seeking a declaration that it owed no more to the couple. The district court sided with the insurer, stating that Beverly\u2019s loss-of-consortium claim inseparably followed the one covering Randy\u2019s injuries.<\/p>\n On appeal, the Eighth Circuit found there were reasonable ways to interpret the policy that could favor either the insurer or the couple. The key interpretive question is the identity of \u201cyou\u201d in the policy\u2019s scope of coverage.<\/p>\n One interpretation, as argued by the district court, finds that Auto-Owners is required to pay UIM benefits to \u201cyou\u201d who sustained bodily injuries. Since Beverly sustained no bodily injuries, she cannot receive compensatory damages for loss of consortium or otherwise, the district court reasoned.<\/p>\n A more favorable interpretation for the Grangers emerges with a close look at Missouri law and the definition of \u201cyou\u201d in the scope-of-coverage provision, the appeals court argued.<\/p>\n In Missouri, the cause of action for loss of consortium seeks to compensate the uninjured spouse.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea is that this background principle allows Beverly, who is the \u2018uninjured spouse,\u2019 \u2026 <\/em>to recover these damages, so the insurance policy must reflect that understanding too, absent language to the contrary,\u201d the appeals court panel wrote.<\/p>\n The one potential \u201cstumbling block\u201d for Beverly is that each reference to \u201cyou\u201d in the policy\u2019s scope-of-coverage provision ostensibly applies to the same person.<\/p>\n However, with a different reading, the \u201cand\u201d can be read disjunctively, the appeals court said, meaning that both <\/em>Randy and Beverly independently qualified as \u201cyou\u201d under the policy definitions.<\/span><\/p>\n The appeals court focused on a line that says \u201c[y]ou . . . means any named insured shown in the Declarations and <\/em>. . . [the] named insured\u2019s spouse who resides in the same household.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRandy\u2019s bodily injury, in other words, becomes the hook for the loss-of-consortium damages Beverly is trying to recover, consistent with how Missouri has defined the cause of action,\u201d the appeals court wrote.<\/p>\n Such an interpretation allows each spouse to recover their own damages up to the $250,000 per-person limit.<\/p>\n The appeals court summarized that the Auto-Owners policy is \u201cpoorly drafted,\u201d leaving open the question of what it does or does not cover. Since Missouri law construes any ambiguity against the insurer, the appeals court said it is required to adopt the interpretation that favors Beverly, allowing her to recover loss-of-consortium damages.<\/p>\n Topics<\/span> Profit Loss<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Was this article valuable?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n