Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani Partner Hiawatha Northington II and Associate Grace Gadow recently secured a victory in the Mississippi Court of Appeals on behalf of the firm’s client, an insurance company, in a coverage dispute.
The case arose out of a motorcycle accident, which the policyholder claimed was caused by “a slick oil substance” in the road. However, the policyholder never identified the specific substance or the source of the substance, including whether it came from a vehicle on the roadway. The insurer denied the claim for uninsured motorist benefits, determining that the policy language precluded coverage since the accident did not involve direct contact with another vehicle.
The policyholder filed suit, seeking a declaratory judgment finding that the policy covered the accident. Relying on Southern Farm Bur. Cas. Ins. v. Brewer, 507 So. 2d 369 (Miss. 1987), the plaintiff argued that the accident was “the result of an unbroken chain of events with a clearly definable beginning and ending, occurring in a continuous sequence,” therefore satisfying the “physical contact” requirement under the policy to allow for recovery of uninsured motorist benefits.
In response, GRSM argued that the policyholder could not establish the requisite sequence of events to show a proximate relationship to the accident. In addition to the policy language, the trial court relied on the definition of an “uninsured motor vehicle” under the Mississippi Uninsured Motorist Act, which requires that in the event of an unknown tortfeasor, “actual physical contact must have occurred between the motor vehicle owned or operated by such unknown person and the person or property of the insured.” Miss. Code Ann. § 83-11-103(c)(v) (Rev. 2022). Without any proof that such contact occurred, the trial court found no coverage and denied the request for declaratory judgment.
Following the policyholder’s appeal, the Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court, recognizing that the policyholder failed to demonstrate that his accident involved the type of indirect physical contact contemplated by the Mississippi Supreme Court in Brewer. In failing to establish the nature of the substance in the road, the source of the substance, or the amount of time the substance had been in the road before the accident, the court found that the policyholder failed to present a basis for coverage under the applicable policy as interpreted under Mississippi statutory law and case law.
GRSM’s effective trial and appellate advocacy reinforced Mississippi’s Uninsured Motorist Act and Mississippi precedent, as well as insurance policy language drafted consistent with both, requiring actual physical contact to invoke coverage for uninsured motorist claims.