Adult Child Not a Resident Relative if she Moves Out of Family Home

Read the full article at https://lnkd.in/gjsjJS7R and at https://zalma.com/blog plus more than 4000 posts.

Kawaljit Bhatia challenged the district court’s grant of respondent insurer’s summary-judgment motion on an uninsured motorist claim. Bhatia argued that there is a genuine fact issue as to whether his daughter was a resident relative under his insurance policy when she was killed in a fall from a motorcycle. In Kawaljit S. Bhatia v. Owners Insurance Company, Court of Appeals of Minnesota (December 6, 2021).

FACTS

In 2016, 21-year-old Ena Bhatia fell off a moving motorcycle that her boyfriend was driving. She died at the scene.

Alleging that the motorcycle was an uninsured vehicle, Bhatia sought UM benefits from his auto insurer.

The policy defines “relative” as “a person who resides with you and who is related to you by blood, marriage or adoption.”

Owners denied Bhatia’s claim because Ena was not a resident relative of her father. Bhatia sued.

Bhatia argued that the district court erred in determining that the undisputed record evidence established that Ena did not reside with him and was therefore not a “relative” under his insurance policy.

ANALYSIS

A party claiming insurance coverage bears the preliminary burden of proof to show a prima facie case of coverage. Once the party claiming coverage meets this burden, the party the burden of proof then shifts to the insurer to prove facts establishing avoidance of liability under the insurance policy as an affirmative defense. Whether the insured has demonstrated a prima facie case of coverage depends on the language of the insurance policy at issue.

Although Ena maintained her childhood bedroom in Bhatia’s Burnsville home, had a key to the home, and would occasionally spend the night, she did not reside there. The undisputed evidence is that Ena resided in the St. Paul apartment.

The evidence left the Court of Appeal no doubt that Bhatia loved his daughter and that he remained close and connected with her until she passed away.

ZALMA OPINION

The Minnesota Court of Appeal read the policy and found that for coverage to apply Ena needed to reside in her father’s home where his auto policy was situated. She did not. She lived in an apartment with her boyfriend whose motorcycle she fell off causing her death. She was moving to another apartment that her father did not owe. To find coverage under the father’s policy the court would have needed to rewrite the policy and change the wording to cover close relatives regardless of where they lived. The court did not have the power to change the policy language and refused to do so even though the judges would have liked to have helped the bereaved father. Insurance is not an eleemosynary society it is a contractual relationship.