To Obtain UM Coverage One Must be a Resident Relative
Kawaljit Bhatia challenged the district court’s grant of respondent insurer’s summary-judgment motion on an uninsured motorist claim. Bhatia argued that there is a genuine fact issue as to whether his daughter was a resident relative under his insurance policy when she was killed in a fall from a motorcycle. In Kawaljit S. Bhatia, as Trustee for the next of kin of Ena M. Bhatia, deceased v. Owners Insurance Company, No. A21-0378, Court of Appeals of Minnesota (December 6, 2021) the Court of Appeals was asked to declare Ena Bhatia a resident relative contrary to the decision of the trial court.
FACTS
In 2016, 21-year-old Ena Bhatia fell off a moving motorcycle that her boyfriend was driving. She died at the scene.
Alleging that the motorcycle was an uninsured vehicle, Bhatia, who is Ena’s father and next-of-kin, sought UM benefits from his own insurance company, Owners Insurance Company (Owners). Bhatia’s insurance policy with Owners identifies the circumstances under which the policyholder may recover damages when the policyholder or a relative is injured or killed in an uninsured vehicle.
The policy defines “relative” as “a person who resides with you and who is related to you by blood, marriage or adoption.”
Owners denied Bhatia’s claim because Ena was not a resident relative of her father. Bhatia sued.
DECISION
Bhatia argued that the district court erred in determining that the undisputed record evidence established that Ena did not reside with him and was therefore not a “relative” under his insurance policy.
The record evidence follows.
Bhatia and his former spouse had two children, Ena and a son.
The couple divorced in 2003.
After the divorce, Bhatia continued to live in the marital home in Burnsville.
As a teenager, Ena maintained a bedroom in the Burnsville home, and she would often stay there, alternating between her father’s house and her mother’s residence.
Following her graduation from high school and emancipation, Ena remained close with her father. They saw each other every day.
Ena moved to an apartment.
Bhatia owns multiple businesses. One of these businesses is a retail store in St. Paul that sells gifts and other items. Bhatia owns the building that houses the St. Paul store. On the upper level of the building, there are four apartment units. At the time of Ena’s death, Bhatia occasionally stayed in one of these units although he continued to live in the Burnsville home. Bhatia’s son lived in a second unit. And, after graduating from high school, Ena lived separately in a third unit. The fourth unit was vacant and used by the family as needed.
Ena kept her bedroom in her father’s Burnsville home, and she occasionally stayed there as an adult. But Ena lived in the unit above the store.
At the time of her death, Ena was in the process of moving from Bhatia’s building to a new apartment with her boyfriend. Bhatia last saw her on November 16, 2016-two days before the motorcycle accident-and they discussed her move at that time. According to Bhatia, she was ecstatic to be moving. She told him that she had written a check on the business account to cover rent for her new apartment. Ena told Bhatia that she was moving some of her belongings into the new apartment that night, including a television that she had taken from the store. Bhatia did not know whether she had actually moved anything into the new residence or spent any time there before she died. But Bhatia “hoped” that Ena had spent the night of November 16 there because she had not stayed in her apartment in his building.
ANALYSIS
A party claiming insurance coverage bears the preliminary burden of proof to show a prima facie case of coverage. Once the party claiming coverage meets this burden, the party the burden of proof then shifts to the insurer to prove facts establishing avoidance of liability under the insurance policy as an affirmative defense. Whether the insured has demonstrated a prima facie case of coverage depends on the language of the insurance policy at issue.
Generally, the extent of an insurer’s liability is determined by its insurance contract with its insured. Insurance policy language “must be construed as a whole, and unambiguous language must be given its plain and ordinary meaning. If a contract is “clear and unambiguous,” a court should not rewrite, modify, or limit its effect by a strained construction.
Under Bhatia’s policy although Ena was related to Bhatia by blood the trial court found Ena did not reside with Bhatia so the policy did not apply to her.
The district court noted that Ena “maintained her own residence separate and apart from [Bhatia],” she did not “regularly sleep under the same roof as [Bhatia],” and she had no intention of returning to Bhatia’s Burnsville home because she “was in the process of moving to a new residence that was not owned by [Bhatia].”
Because the policy here requires a resident-relative to reside with the insured, the Court of Appeal agreed with the district court’s decision to focus on whether Bhatia and Ena lived under the same roof. The Court of Appeal’s independent review of the record evidence established that father and daughter had a close relationship. But there are no facts that would allow a reasonable fact finder to conclude that they lived together.
Although Ena maintained her childhood bedroom in Bhatia’s Burnsville home, had a key to the home, and would occasionally spend the night, she did not reside there. The undisputed evidence is that Ena resided in the St. Paul apartment. Moreover, there is no evidence that Ena ever planned to reside in the Burnsville home again. At the time of her death, she was in the process of moving to another apartment.
The evidence left the Court of Appeal no doubt that Bhatia loved his daughter and that he remained close and connected with her until she passed away.
Because there is no genuine factual dispute as to whether Ena resided with Bhatia, the district court did not err in determining that she did not qualify as a resident relative under Bhatia’s insurance policy and in granting Owners’ motion for summary judgment.
The Minnesota Court of Appeal read the policy and found that for coverage to apply Ena needed to reside in her father’s home where his auto policy was situated. She did not. She lived in an apartment with her boyfriend whose motorcycle she fell off causing her death. She was moving to another apartment that her father did not owe. To find coverage under the father’s policy the court would have needed to rewrite the policy and change the wording to cover close relatives regardless of where they lived. The court did not have the power to change the policy language and refused to do so even though the judges would have liked to have helped the bereaved father. Insurance is not an eleemosynary society it is a contractual relationship.
He also serves as an arbitrator or media
tor for insurance related disputes. He practiced law in California for more than 44 years as an insurance coverage and claims handling lawyer and more than 54 years in the insurance business.
Subscribe to Excellence in Claims Handling at https://barryzalma.substack.com/welcome.
He is available at http://www.zalma.com and zalma@zalma.com.
Mr. Zalma is the first recipient of the first annual Claims Magazine/ACE Legend Award.
Over the last 53 years Barry Zalma has dedicated his life to insurance, insurance claims and the need to defeat insurance fraud. He has created the following library of books and other materials to make it possible for insurers and their claims staff to become insurance claims professionals.
Go to training available at https://claimschool.com; articles at https://zalma.substack.com, the podcast Zalma On Insurance at https://anchor.fm/barry-zalma; Follow Mr. Zalma on Twitter at https://twitter.com/bzalma; Go to Barry Zalma videos at https://www.rumble.com/zalma ; Go to Barry Zalma on YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCysiZklEtxZsSF9DfC0Expg; Go to the Insurance Claims Library – https://zalma.com/blog/insurance-claims-library/ The last two issues of ZIFL are available at https://zalma.com/zalmas-insurance-fraud-letter-2/ podcast now available at https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/zalma-on-insurance/id1509583809?uo=4
Like this:
Loading…
Related
