 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
KIBBEE v. STATE FARM FIRE AND CAS. CO.12/21/1994
fined personal injury, they would have said "malicious prosecution and malicious humiliation." In identifying the other torts listed in this paragraph, each noun was modified separately. For example, the policy says "false arrest" and "false imprisonment," not "false arrest and imprisonment." Furthermore paragraph (a) reads "mental anguish or mental injury," not "mental anguish or injury."
Kibbee argues that State Farm should have put a comma after the word "prosecution" if it had not intended the word "malicious" to modify the word "humiliation." See The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary of the English Language EH-42 (1988) ("A comma should separate pairs of words in a series. A comma should not be placed before a conjunction joining words of a series that are considered as one unit."). Although it may be true that the grammatically correct way to punctuate the sentence would have been as Kibbee suggests, the insurer consistently violated this grammatical rule in its definition of personal injury . Even where State Farm did not use a comma before the conjunctions separating words in a series, it is clear that the phrases or words separated by the conjunctions were not intended to be one unit. Moreover, we have recognized that punctuation is the most fallible basis for interpretation of a contract. Randolph v. Fireman's Fund Ins. Co., 255 Iowa 943, 948, 124 N.W.2d 528, 530-31 (1963). Punctuation will not control the meaning of words over the meaning suggested by the arrangement of the words and the text in which they appear. Id.
Kibbee also points out that coverage for mere humiliation is superfluous because humiliation is encompassed in paragraph (a) under "shock, mental anguish or mental injury ." While that may be so, the language quoted from paragraph (a) is itself redundant. For example, mental anguish is a mental injury. Consequently, the inclusion of humiliation, a type of mental anguish, is not inconsistent with the repetitive structure of the personal injury definition. Although we strive to give each word a meaning that does not render it superfluous, see Stahl v. Preston Mutual Insurance Ass'n, 517 N.W.2d 201, 203 (Iowa 1994), we will not do so when that meaning is inconsistent with the structure and format of the text in which the word is located and when that meaning is otherwise unreasonable.
One reason that Kibbee's suggested meaning of the language here is unreasonable is because malicious humiliation is not a recognized tort. We will not interpret the policy language to cover a tort that is nonexistent. Nor can we reasonably interpret the phrase "malicious humiliation" to refer to the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress. If the parties had intended to cover the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress, they would have used that well-recognized phrase just as they used the common names of the other torts included in the definition. [525 NW2d Page 870]
To equate the unknown tort of malicious humiliation with the established tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress is a strained interpretation of the policy.
We conclude that the interpretation upon which Kibbee relies is unreasonable. Therefore, we hold that the tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress is not included in the definition of personal injury . Having decided that, it is not necessary to consider whether the intentional act exclusion conflicts with the policy's coverage of other intentional torts.
The district court correctly ruled that State Farm's policy did not cover the judgment obtained by Kibbee.
AFFIRMED.
Page 1 2 3 Iowa Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|