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Young v. Louisiana Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Co.3/1/2005
AFFIRMED
The litigation arises out of an automobile accident. On September 24, 2003, Robert Young was killed when the car he was driving was struck in the driver's side by a dump truck operated by Mark Verrett and owned by Jermaine Roussell. Plaintiff Diane Young, wife of the deceased, was following in a separate vehicle and saw the accident as it occurred.
Mrs. Young and her daughter Diane filed suit against Louisiana Farm Bureau, the Young's uninsured/underinsured motorist carrier, asserting a claim for Robert's survival damages and a separate claim for Mrs. Young's mental anguish and emotional distress, also known as Lejeune damages.
Defendant Louisiana Farm Bureau filed a motion for summary judgment alleging that it had paid $25,000.00, the limit of liability for all damages resulting from the bodily injury to one person, such as the decedent. Defendant asserts that the "each person" limit includes "Lejeune/bystander" damages, and thus the plaintiffs had no further claims against it.
After hearing, the trial court granted defendant's motion, and dismissed plaintiff's claims. Plaintiffs have appealed from this decision.
The sole issue in this appeal is whether Mrs. Young's claim mental anguish, or Lejeune damages, is included in the claim for "bodily injury" suffered by the decedent.
Summary judgment is appropriate if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions, and affidavits in the record show that there is no genuine issue as to material fact and that the mover is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. La. C.C.P. art. 966(B).
Interpretation of an insurance contract is usually a question of law that can be properly resolved in the framework of a motion for summary judgment. Smith v. Williams, 03-0433 (La. App. 1 Cir. 5/14/04), 879 So.2d 233. An insurer seeking to avoid coverage through summary judgment must prove that some exclusion applies to preclude coverage. Clulee v. Bayou Fleet, Inc., 04-106 (La. App. 5 Cir. 5/26/04), 875 So.2d 878.
An insurance policy is a contract between the parties and should be construed using the general rules of interpretation of contracts set forth in the Civil Code. Clulee, supra. Analysis should begin with a review of the words in the insurance contract, and the contract must be enforced as written when the words are clear and explicit and lead to no absurd consequences. Collins v. Farris, 03-1991 (La. App. 1 Cir. 11/3/04), ___ So.2d ___, ___. If, after applying the other general rules of construction, an ambiguity remains, the ambiguous contractual provision is to be construed against the insurer who issued the policy and in favor of the insured. Id.
Mrs. Young contends her separate injury for her mental anguish as a result of witnessing the accident is a separate claim covered under the uninsured/underinsured portion of her automobile policy. In Crabtree v. State Farm Ins. Co., 93-0509 (La. 2/28/94), 632 So.2d 736, the court considered the issue of whether a wife's mental anguish suffered upon witnessing an injury to her husband constitutes a separate bodily injury under an automobile insurance policy thereby entitling the wife to her own per person policy limit subject to the aggregate per accident limit. The court concluded that the wife's mental aguish did constitute a "bodily injury" within the meaning of the policy, that the claim was not subject to the single person policy limit, and that the claim was suffered within the same accident as that which caused the injury to the husband. The court then held that "the wife's mental anguish constitutes a separate bodily injury under the policy entitling her to her own per person po
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