Marlena Whicker rear-ended a taxi and caused injury to the taxi's passenger, Georgiana Chavez. Questions arose when the insurer tried to determine whether or not Whicker was a covered driver. (Photo: Shutterstock)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit found that a plaintiff's complaint failed to trigger a duty to defend the driver of a car in the underlying suit because the complaint failed to state any facts that could have plausibly given rise to a claim covered by the relevant insurance policy. Also, without extrinsic evidence, it could not be concluded from the relevant documents, the complaint and the policy, that the driver was an insured under the policy.
|The case
While driving a car owned by another person and insured by Arizona Automobile Insurance Company (Arizona Ins.) Marlena Whicker rear-ended a taxi and caused injury to the taxi's passenger, Georgiana Chavez. No one disputes that Whicker was responsible for the accident. At the time of the incident, Whicker was living with the vehicle's owner but was not related to him. He was one of the vehicles three named insureds, but she was not included in that number. Since she was not covered, the policy did not automatically cover Whicker's use of the vehicle. The policy did, although, cover drivers of the vehicle with the named insured's permission, making car users insureds in their own right.
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