Auto insurance injury coverage doesn’t extend to STDs from car sex, Eighth Circuit rules

(CN) — The St. Louis-based Eighth Circuit on Friday rebuffed a Missouri woman's claims for insurance coverage stemming from a sexually transmitted diseased she received from her partner in his car.

The appellate court absolved insurance giant Geico of any responsibility to cover her injuries, affirming a March 2023 decision from the U.S. District Court of Western Missouri. Though the woman identified in court filings as M.O. contracted HPV from her partner M.B. in his 2014 Hyundai Genesis, the Eighth Circuit found this had little to do with the car itself.

"[M.B's] automobile was nothing more than the situs of M.O.’s injury. Thus, it cannot be said that [his] negligent transmission of HPV to M.O. arose out of the use of the automobile," U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Gruender, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote for the court's unanimous nine-page opinion.

M.O. sent Geico a $1 million bodily injury claim for her diagnosis in February 2021. M.B. was a policyholder with the insurer, and had coverage for bodily injury. But the couple hadn't used protection, and Geico denied the infection was its responsibility. The couple brought the case to federal court, where U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan Jr. ruled last year much the same as the Eighth Circuit did Friday.

The couple appealed the decision, leading to oral arguments this past June. There and in court briefs the couple argued the HPV infection — which subsequently led to M.O. developing cancer — was sufficiently connected to the use of a car and its insured owner to justify an insurance award. According to M.O., M.B. never told her he had HPV, and a Missouri arbitrator found he owed her $5.2 million for negligence.

"Under the Geico Auto Policy, 'bodily injury means bodily injury to a person, including resulting sickness, disease or death,'" the couple wrote in their appellate brief.

Even if Geico's policy was unclear on this specific issue, the couple argued they were still entitled to its benefits. M.B.'s Geico policy was issued in Kansas, where contractual ambiguity is generally decided in favor of the insureds.

"If the policy is ambiguous, the Kansas law requires it be interpreted in favor of [M.B.] and coverage. Under that circumstance, the policy would again provide coverage," the pair argued in their brief.

M.O.'s attorney David Mayer, of the Kansas City law firm Monsees & Mayer, reiterated this claim during oral arguments. It sparked debate among the appellate panel, who wondered just how far this line of logic could extend. Would a decision in M.O.'s favor make Geico responsible for car sex that results in unwanted pregnancies?

Mayer answered that while unwanted pregnancies may not be "bodily injuries," HPV and cancer certainly are.

"This was a bodily injury. This poor lady received cancer and it's terrible. It's a bad situation," Mayer said.

The Eighth Circuit acknowledged this in their opinion Friday, but found the couple's argument too much of a stretch. The circuit judges looked at prior similar cases, and concluded that policy language under Kansas law must be examined through the lens of what "a reasonable person in the position of the insured would understand the policy to mean."

The judges also warned against deriving policy meaning "from abstract words in isolation."

"'A reasonable person in the position of the insured' would 'derive meaning not just from abstract words in isolation, but from their context and from the document as a whole,' and would not believe that his automobile insurance covers any bodily injury for which he becomes liable," Gruender wrote.

The appellate panel's opinion aligned more with arguments presented by Geico and its attorney Douglas Beck of the law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon. Beck made an appeal to the "normal" use of a car in June, saying the insurance policy should only apply when "using an auto as an auto... for vehicular purposes."

For an example of a situation where he said coverage is warranted, Beck pointed to the 1995 case Garrison v. State Farm. In that case, the Kansas Supreme Court decided a man was entitled to coverage after his friend accidentally shot him with a shotgun on a hunting trip while taking the gun out of his car.

"They were driving, pausing, would get out, would hunt, would get back in the car, would drive to another location. They were using the car as an automobile is intended to be used," Beck said.

The Eighth Circuit agreed, finding significant daylight between Garrison and M.O.'s situation.

"Unlike Garrison, the record does not reflect that at the time M.O. contracted HPV [M.B.]'s automobile was being used to transport anyone, was being driven, or that the engine was running," Gruender wrote.

"No causal relationship exists between [M.B.] and M.O.’s decision to shelter in an automobile for a sexual encounter as opposed to choosing to shelter in a house, or not shelter at all, and [M.B.]’s transmission of HPV to M.O.," he added.

Gruender was joined by U.S. Circuit Judges Steven Colloton and Michael Melloy, also George W. Bush appointees.

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