In Penn National v. Costa, decided April 29, 2008, the Appellate Division reversed the Law Division’s denial of the motion for summary judgment by the defendant/third-party plaintiff homeowner’s insurer and remanded for the entry of judgment for the homeowner’s insurer and against the plaintiff automobile insurer in a coverage action for injuries sustained by the third-party defendant when he slipped on ice and hit his head on the vertical post of the jack being used to replace a tire on his employer’s pickup truck in the employer’s driveway. Because the injuries arose out of the maintenance of an automobile, which fell under an exclusion in the homeowner’s insurance policy, the court held that the auto carrier was required to defend and indemnify the vehicle owner.
This is a published opinion and will constitute binding precedent going forward. It is noteworthy, insofar as the court uncharacteristically enforced a policy exclusion. However, this was most likely due to the fact that alternate coverage was in place.
