GEICO doesn't have to pay for STD contracted during car sex, despite policy punctuation, 8th Circuit says
A woman who contracted human papillomavirus after car sex isn’t entitled to damages from her sexual partner’s auto insurance policy, a federal appeals court has ruled. (Image from Shutterstock)
A woman who contracted human papillomavirus after car sex isn’t entitled to damages from her sexual partner’s auto insurance policy, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis ruled against the woman identified as “M.O.” and her sexual partner Martin Brauner in an Aug. 2 opinion.
M.O. and Brauner made two arguments why GEICO’s Kansas automobile policy should cover the woman’s injury from the sexually transmitted disease contracted during car sex in Jackson County, Missouri.
The first argument was based on the policy language. It provided that GEICO:
“Will pay damages which an insured becomes legally obligated to pay because of:
bodily injury, sustained by a person, and;
damage to or destruction of property, arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the owned auto or a nonowned auto.”
Brauner and M.O. contended that the language about use of the auto policy only applies to property damage claims—not to bodily injury claims. They pointed to the line break and the semicolon between the bodily-injury and the property-damage provisions.
The 8th Circuit rejected that interpretation, citing Kansas law that determines the intent of the parties to an insurance policy based on what a reasonable insured person would understand the policy to mean.
When viewed though the lens of a reasonable person, “we conclude that the ‘arising out of’ clause unambiguously modifies both the ‘bodily injury’ and ‘property damage’ clauses,” the 8th Circuit said.
Brauner and M.O.’s second argument was that M.O.’s injuries did arise from use of the insured vehicle. They pointed to a 1995 Kansas Supreme Court decision finding that a legal injury caused by the accidental firing of a shotgun taken from a car during a hunting trip arose “out of the ownership, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle.”
The 8th Circuit disagreed. The gun injury decision, Garrison v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., required a causal connection between the use of the vehicle and the injury, the appeals court said.
In the GEICO case, “no causal relationship exists between Brauner and M.O.’s decision to shelter in an automobile for a sexual encounter as opposed to choosing to shelter in a house, or not shelter at all, and Brauner’s transmission of HPV to M.O.,” the 8th Circuit said. “Brauner’s automobile was nothing more than the situs of M.O.’s injury.”
The car in Garrison, on the other hand, was more than the situs of the injury, the appeals court said. It was being used to transport the hunters and their guns, the engine was still running at the time of the accident, and the plaintiff had intended to drive further.
The GEICO litigation had involved state and federal courts.
M.O. had initially demanded the policy limit of $1 million. GEICO denied the demand and filed a federal lawsuit for a declaratory judgment that M.O.’s injuries weren’t covered. M.O. and Brauner, meanwhile, settled M.O.’s threatened suit with an agreement to arbitrate the negligence claim. The arbitrator awarded $5.2 million.
GEICO intervened when M.O. sought to confirm the judgment in Missouri state court. While the litigation continued in state court, a federal judge ruled for GEICO in March 2023.
The 8th Circuit affirmed in its Friday decision.
The author of the 8th Circuit decision was Judge Raymond Gruender, an appointee of former President George W. Bush.
Hat tip to Courthouse News Service, which had coverage of the decision.
