One occurrence under cause theory for accident with three vehicles
In Auto-Owners Ins. Co. v. Munroe, (7th Cir., no. 09-3427, 7-22-10), the court held that a $1 million policy limit applied even though three insured vehicles caused the accident.
Munroe sufferred serious injury on November 6, 2006, when he tried to pass one truck, struck the rear of a second truck, then collided head on with a third truck. the three trucks, traveling in a convoy, were owned by Wayne Wilkens Trucking. Wilkins and the trucks were insured by Auto-Owners, which provided coverage of $1 million per occurrence and aggregate.
The Munroes sued, alleging negligence against each driver and Wilkens. They settled for policy limits (less a PD payment), with their claim that policy limits were more than $1 million left for a declaratory action. The district court granted Auto-Owners summary judgment in that action, finding that coverage was limited to $1 million per occurrence.
On appeal the Munroes argued that the policy provided $3 million in coverage (three occurrences or $1 million per vehicle). The court rejected the claim for $1 million per vehicle because the policy limited coverage to $1 million regardless of how many persons a claim was made against (severability clause) or the number of vehicles scheduled or involved in the accident (combined limit of liability provision).
Regarding the number of occurrences, the court, citing Nicor, Inc. v. Associated Elec. & Gas, 223 Ill.2d 407 (2006), noted that Illinois applies the cause theory, which presupposes multiple discrete events and asks whether the events had a common cause. In finding only one occurrence, the court distinguished Illinois Nat'l Ins. Co. v. Szczepkowicz, 542 N.E.2d 90 (1989), where the insured truck was struck by a vehicle, moved forward to free a lane, and was struck by a second vehicle five minutes later. Because the two collisions there were not the result of a "single force, nor an unbroken or uninterupted continuum that...caused multiple injuries," there were seperate causes and thus seperate applicable insurance limits.
Here, there was a "single force" and thus a single continuous occurrence. Even if there were seperate causes, then, because they occurred after the single force was set in motion, they were not intervening causes.
In Addison Insurance Co v. Fay, 232 Ill.2d 446 (2009), the court applied a "space and time" test to determine the number of occurrences, stating that it applied to omissions as opposed to affirmative acts of negligence. It seems that without stating as much the Munroe court applied the "space and time" test to "affirmative acts of negligence" as a "continuous occurrence" is simply one lacking separation in space or time.
