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Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Superior Court (Jose Luis Cervantes Bautista – Real Parties in Interest)

(Auto Exclusion In Homeowners Policy Applied To Bar Coverage Of Wrongful Death Action)

In Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Superior Court (Jose Luis Cervantes Bautista – Real Parties in Interest), 220 Cal.App.4th 1199 (October 28, 2013), the California Fourth District Court of Appeal granted Farmers Insurance Exchange’s (“Farmers”) petition for writ of mandate requiring the trial court to enter summary judgment in its favor relative to the absence of coverage afforded under a homeowners policy issued to Jose Bautista and Lourdes M. Sanchez in connection with a wrongful death action filed against Jose Bautista and his wife, Sara Bautista (also an insured under the Farmers policy). The parties’ dispute arose out of an underlying accident, wherein, the Bautistas’ granddaughter was killed when Jose Bautista ran her over with his truck while backing out of the driveway at his home. Sara Bautista was taking care of her granddaughter, Valerie, when Valerie was run over by a pickup truck operated by Jose Bautista. Sara Bautista was responsible for supervising Valerie at the time of the accident.

Subsequently, Valerie’s mother, Kenia Casaya, and her sisters filed an action against the Bautistas (“Casaya action”). Farmers provided a defense to the Bautistas in the Casaya action. Thereafter, the parties resolved such action by stipulated judgment for the amount of $360,000. In addition, the plaintiffs signed a covenant not to execute on the judgment in exchange for an assignment of the action by the Bautistas to proceed against Farmers based on its denial of coverage under the Bautistas’ homeowners policy. Farmers had defended the Baustistas under an automobile policy.

Subsequently, Farmers filed a declaratory relief action against the Bautistas contending that potential coverage was not afforded under its homeowners policy for the Casaya action based on the auto exclusion in such policy. Farmers filed a motion for summary judgment arguing that potential coverage was not afforded for the Casaya action based on the auto exclusion. The trial court denied Farmers’ motion. Thereafter, Farmers filed a petition for writ of mandate in the Court of Appeal requesting the Court of Appeal to issue an order requiring the trial court to enter summary judgment in favor of Farmers. The Court of Appeal agreed and issued an order mandating the trial court to enter summary judgment in favor of Farmers. The Court of Appeal rejected the underlying plaintiffs’ argument that Sara Bautista’s negligent supervision of Valerie constituted an independent cause of her death such that the auto exclusion in the Farmers’ policy did not apply to bar coverage of plaintiffs’ wrongful death action. In rejecting plaintiffs’ arguments, the Court of Appeal reasoned as follows:

The coverage issue in this case turns on whether Jose’s negligent operation of his truck and Sara’s negligent supervision of the children are dependent or independent concurrent proximate causes of Valerie's fatal injuries. The difficulty in resolving this issue arises in part from determining how independent a proximate cause has to be in order to avoid the motor vehicle exclusion in the homeowners policy, and in part from the elasticity of the concept of proximate case. (citations)

. . .

Moreover, as in Coburn, the supervision here was negligent only because it exposed the children to the danger of negligent automobile use. Although the negligent supervision claimed in this case is not as closely “auto-related” as it was in Coburn, it is still related enough that it does not constitute an “independent, concurrent proximate cause of” Valerie’s fatal injuries. (Partridge, supra, 10 Cal.3d at p. 99; see Medill v. Westport Ins. Corp. (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 819 835 is clear when reviewing the facts set forth in Partridge . . . and Kohl that one of the negligent acts which occurred did not depend upon the use of an automobile and, thus, did not fall within the exclusionary clause”].)

It was undisputed that “Sara’s alleged negligence is in allowing Valerie to be out of the house in the zone of danger,” which was created when Jose came home in his truck. It was undisputed that Sara “needed to take extra precautions for the younger grandchildren, including Valerie,” because the “grandchildren would routinely go out to greet Jose at his truck, when he came home.” Sara testified that the children were normally excited when their grandfather arrived home, that they waited in anticipation for him to come home, and that "in negligently supervising the children . . . was an omission separate from the use of the vehicle only in terms of time and it cannot be disassociated from the use of the vehicle itself . . . “ (Id. At pp. 920-921.)

Similarly, as in Prince, it was Sara's failure to supervise Valerie when she went out to greet Jose as he drove home in his pickup truck that "subjected death." (Prince, supra, 142 Cal.App.4th at 245.) Had Sara’s failure to supervise Valerie occurred at any other time, Valerie would not have been exposed to the risk of Jose’s truck arriving home. As the court stated in Prince, “in order for Partridge to apply there must be two negligent acts or omissions of the insured, one of which, independently of the excluded cause, renders the insured liable for the resulting Injuries." (Id. at p. 239; see Garvey v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. (1989) 48 Cal.3d 395, 399 [Partridge “should be utilized only in liability cases in which true concurrent causes, each originating from an independent act of negligence, simultaneously joint together to produce injury”].) Sara’s alleged negligent supervision would not have rendered her and Jose liable independently of Jose’s driving of his vehicle, and was not a “totally independent...” cause of Valerie’s death. (Medill v. Westport Ins. Corp., supra, 143 Cal.App.4th at p. 835.)

Moreover, as in Coburn, where the injury caused by the insured’s non-vehicular negligence (failing to supervise children while packing a van parked in his driveway could only have occurred at the time and in the manner of the vehicular negligence (loading a van in the driveway without setting the parking brake), Sara’s non-vehicular negligence (failing to supervise children while Jose drove his truck in the driveway) can only have occurred at the time and place of the vehicular negligence: in the Bautistas’ driveway when Jose came home from work.

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