Injured Uber driver was not covered by Uber’s insurer, 10th Circuit says

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has rejected a breach of contract claim brought by a rideshare driver for Uber Technologies Inc. against Uber’s insurer after the insurer refused to cover injuries she sustained in an accident on the return leg of a lengthy fare.

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The case

Bonni J. Genzer, an Uber driver, accepted a fare through UberPartner, Uber’s smartphone application for drivers, to transport a passenger about 139 miles from Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City to Woodward, Oklahoma. After dropping her passenger off in Woodward, Genzer began heading back to the Oklahoma City area.

On the return journey, Genzer was injured when an oncoming semi-trailer truck ejected a semicircular metal object that crashed through her windshield and hit her face. The truck’s driver continued traveling and was never identified.

Genzer submitted a claim for uninsured motorist, medical, rental car and collision coverage to James River Insurance Company. James River had previously issued two business auto insurance policies (the “100 Policy” and the “200 Policy”) to Rasier LLC, Rasier-CA LLC, Rasier-DC LLC, and Rasier-PA LLC, affiliates of Uber. Genzer claimed that, at the time of the accident, her UberPartner app was set to the “available” trip status and that she was “returning from taking a rider to” Woodward.

Michael Pitts, a claims examiner for James River, disclaimed coverage for Genzer’s injuries. He said that whether “available or offline, there [wa]sn’t coverage.”

Pitts sent Genzer a disclaimer-of-coverage letter on James River’s behalf. The letter initially explained that the 200 Policy applied when a driver was “available” for ride requests, while the 100 Policy applied when a driver was “en route” to pick up a passenger or was “providing” transportation services. The letter advised that neither policy applied if the driver had “logged off the ‘UberPartner application,’ which [was] the case here.”

After quoting both policies’ covered-auto endorsements, the letter concluded that “[a]s Bonni Genzer was not logged into the ‘UberPartner application’ at the time of the accident her vehicle [did] not appear to qualify as a ‘[c]overed auto,’ under either the 100 or 200 Policies.”

Genzer sued James River, asserting that its denial of uninsured motorist coverage under the 100 Policy breached its contractual obligations. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma granted summary judgment in favor of James River, and Genzer appealed to the Tenth Circuit.

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The Tenth Circuit’s decision

The Tenth Circuit affirmed, concluding that the provision of the 100 Policy’s covered auto endorsement under which Genzer claimed uninsured motorist coverage was not ambiguous and that her claim fell outside the scope of its “plain terms.”

In its decision, the circuit court explained that Genzer claimed uninsured motorist coverage under subpart (a)(2) of the 100 Policy’s covered auto endorsement, which applied when a driver had “logged and recorded acceptance” of a “request to provide transportation services” and was “[t]raveling to the final destination of the requested transportation services including, but not limited to, dropping-off of passenger(s).”

The circuit court found no ambiguity in this provision, adding that it “plainly” defined coverage as being coterminous with a passenger’s “requested transportation services,” which concluded when the passenger reached his or her “final destination” and fully exited the vehicle with his or her belongings. The circuit court added that although it contemplated intervening stops en route to the destination, “including, but not limited to, dropping-off of passenger(s),” its coverage “plainly cease[d] at the last passenger’s destination.”

The Tenth Circuit rejected Genzer’s contention that subpart (a)(2) contemplated coverage for “the entire route” that she “had to take, as a practical matter, to accomplish her task,” including her journey from her passenger’s drop-off location back to her starting point or to a different location, finding that interpretation “inconsistent with” the provision’s “plain meaning.” In the Tenth Circuit’s opinion, her interpretation made sense only if the “final destination” in subpart (a)(2) was the driver’s terminus.

The circuit court emphasized, however, that the provision described the final destination in relation to the passenger’s “requested transportation services.” The circuit court reasoned that it was not logical to construe the passenger’s “requested transportation services” as somehow including the driver’s destination.

It then rejected Genzer’s contention that the phrase “including, but not limited to, dropping off of passengers” meant that “something beyond the mere dropping off of passengers was intended.” The Tenth Circuit agreed that this quoted policy language comprehended occurrences other than passenger drop-offs — for example, stops along the way to visit a convenience store, to retrieve money from an ATM or to drop off some (but not all) passengers — but it found that the prefatory language “traveling to the final destination of the requested transportation services” imposed a temporal limitation on such occurrences. In the Tenth Circuit’s view, once the last passenger fully exited the vehicle at his or her final destination, the “requested” services were fulfilled and coverage terminated.

The circuit court pointed out that if the 100 Policy’s drafters had intended for coverage to continue beyond the requesting passenger’s final destination, they could have included such language, as they did in subpart (b)(2), which covered situations in which a driver was located on public-airport premises “immediately following the conclusion of the requested transportation services and while in the course of exiting” the premises. According to the Tenth Circuit, subpart (b)(2)’s “clear provision” for coverage after the “conclusion of the requested transportation services” implied the deliberate omission of such coverage from subpart (a)(2).

The Tenth Circuit concluded that subpart (a)(2) of the covered auto endorsement covered Genzer from when she accepted her passenger’s request for transportation from Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City until she dropped off the passenger at the requested final destination in Woodward. The 100 Policy, therefore, provided no coverage for the injuries that Ms. Genzer had sustained in the accident during her return journey from Woodward.

The case is Genzer v. James River Ins. Co., No. 18-6105 (10th Cir. Aug. 20, 2019).

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