Calvin THOELE, Plaintiff,
v.
AETNA CASUALTY & SURETY, Defendant-Counterdefendant-Appellee,
v.
Michael and Elvera KANAK, individually and as husband and
wife and as parents and natural guardians of
Angela Kanak, a minor,
Counterplaintiffs-Appellants.
No. 93-4068.
United States Court of Appeals,
Seventh Circuit.
Argued May 11, 1994.
Decided Oct. 28, 1994.
Ray Freeark, Jeffery A. Cain (argued), Randy Wuller, Freeark, Harvey, Mendillo, Dennis, Wuller & Buser, Belleville, IL, for plaintiffs-appellants.
D. Kendall Griffith, Kristin E. Hutson (argued), Hinshaw & Culbertson, Chicago, IL, Dawn A. Sallerson, Hinshaw, Culbertson, Moelmann, Hoban & Fuller, Eugine C. Menges, St. Clair County Atty., Belleville, IL, for defendant-appellee.
Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and CUDAHY and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.
ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge.
Calvin Thoele administered emergency care to a choking child left in his wife Sharon's care. The child's parents sued Mr. Thoele for permanent injuries she allegedly sustained as the result of his efforts. Mr. Thoele in turn brought this suit seeking a declaration that these injuries fell within the coverage of his homeowner's insurance policy. The district court concluded that the child's injuries arose from the business pursuits of Mrs. Thoele and were thus not covered by the homeowner's policy. We agree and affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
In 1978 or 1979, Sharon Thoele decided to establish a babysitting service at the Thoeles' home in Cahokia, Illinois. She obtained the rеquisite license from the state, purchased a playpen, swings, porta-cribs, and a variety of other equipment, and established a separate bank account for her earnings. Her husband was largely uninvolved in her work, although he might keep an eye on children playing in their yard if he happened to be outside with them.
On March 4, 1986, Mrs. Thoele was caring for six children, including Angela Kanak. At some point, under circumstances that the record does not make clear, Angela began choking and gasping. Mr. Thoele attempted mouth to mouth resuscitation and heart massage. Although Angela survived the incident, she was left with permanent disabling injuries. Angela's parents, Michael and Elvera Kanak, subsequently brought suit against the Thoeles in state court, alleging that Sharon Thoele had been negligent in caring for Angela and that Calvin Thoele had negligently administered cardio-рulmonary resuscitation ("CPR").
Mr. Thoele subsequently filed this action in Illinois state court against Aetna Casualty & Surety ("Aetna"), which had issued a homeowner's insurance policy to the Thoeles that was in effect at the time of Angela's injury. Mr. Thoele sought a declaration that the policy covered his alleged negligence and that Aetna had a duty to defend and indemnify him. He invoked the following provision in the policy:COVERAGE E--PERSONAL LIABILITY
If a claim is made оr suit is brought against any insured for damages because of bodily injury or property damage caused by an occurrence to which this coverage applies, even if the claim or suit is false, we will:
a. Pay up to our limit of liability for the damages for which the insured is legally liable; and
b. Provide a defense at our expense by counsel of our choice. We may investigate and settle any claim or suit that we decide is appropriate. Our duty to settle or defend ends when the amount we pay for damages resulting from the occurrence equals our limit of liability.
R. 18, Ex. A at 13. Aetna removed the suit to federal court, where it contended that the following exclusion applied:
Coverage E--Personal Liability and Coverage F--Medical Payments to Others do not apply to bodily injury or property damage:
a. which is expected or intended by the insured;
b. arising out of business pursuits of any insured or the rental or holding for rental of any part of any premises by any insured.
NOTE: The furnishing of home day care services for
(1) a fee; or
(2) other compensation
by the insured and the rendering of such services two or more days per week for a period of two or more hours per day constitutes one type of many different business pursuits.
This exclusion does not apply to:
(1) activities which are ordinarily incident to non-business pursuits;
....
R. 18, Ex. A at 14. At Aetna's request, Michael and Elvera Kanak were named as additional plaintiffs in the suit, given their obvious interest in the coverage of the Thoеles' insurance policy. R. 11. See Reagor v. Travelers Ins. Co.,
At the conclusion of discovery, the Kanaks and Aetna filed cross-motions for summary judgment as to whether the "business pursuits" exclusion in the Thoeles' insurance policy applied to the Kanaks' claim against Calvin Thoele. The district court determined that Sharon Thoele's babysitting constituted a "business pursuit" within the meaning of the policy. Although Calvin Thoele ostensibly was not involved in Sharon Thoele's business, the court reasoned that by virtue of the policy's reference to injuries "arising out of business pursuits of any insured," the exclusion applied to him as well. Finally, the court rejected thе Kanaks' contention that Mr. Thoele's rendering of CPR to Angela was exempted from the business pursuits exclusion as an "activity which is ordinarily incident to a non-business pursuit." The court recognized that administering CPR per se is not an activity normally associated with babysitting. Yet, the court noted, rendering first aid to an injured child is unquestionably within the duties of a babysitter. The court thus concluded that Calvin Thoele's efforts to render emergency assistance would not satisfy the exception to the business pursuits exclusion. R. 47. After their motion to reconsider was denied, the Kanaks appealed.
II. ANALYSIS
Our review of the district court's summary judgment ruling is de novo. Cuddington v. Northern Indiana Pub. Serv. Co.,
We have no doubt that Angela's injuries arose from the business pursuits of an insured, namely Sharon Thoele. "A business pursuit is a continuous or regular activity, done for the purpose of returning a profit. This is true even of part-time or supplemental income activities." Ostry,
Nonetheless, the Kanaks argue that any injury Calvin Thoele may have caused Angela did not arise from his business pursuit, as he played no role in Sharon Thoele's business and did not act as its employee in attempting to aid Angela. If the exclusion merely applied to the business pursuits of "the insured," the Kanaks might have a point. But the exclusion instead applies to injuries arising out of the business pursuits of "any insured." The district court was quite right to conclude that the choice of the word "any" broadened the exclusion to include injuries triggered by one insured in connection with the business pursuit of another. See Sales v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co.,
We move on to consider whether, in administering CPR to Angela, Mr. Thoele engaged in an activity "ordinarily incident to a non-business pursuit," such that it is excepted from the business pursuits exclusion of the policy. The scope of this languаge is not entirely self-evident, and Illinois courts have eschewed any categorical definitions of activities falling within this exception in favor of a case-by-case examination of the particular act or omission giving rise to the injury. See Markogiannakis,
Moore illustrates the point. In that case, a child in the paid care of a babysitter pulled a pan of boiling water onto himself while the sitter was preparing lunch. The sitter's duties had included the preparation of lunch for that child, but at the time she was preparing lunch not only for him but for herself and her own child, and she indicated that she would have been making the same preparations even if she had not been required to prepare lunch for the children in her paid care. Consequently, the source of the harm (the boiling water) would still have been present even if the insured had not been babysitting for profit. For that reason, the court concluded that the injury resulted from an activity ordinarily incident to a non-business pursuit.
Likening this case to Moore, the Kanaks posit that Mr. Thoele would have administered CPR to Angela even if his wife had not been paid to care for her, and so they argue that his efforts may be characterized as activity ordinarily incident to a non-business pursuit. But whether Mr. Thoele would have been inclined, even obligated, to aid Angela had she mеrely been a social guest at the Thoele home is immaterial. The point of Moore, as we read it, is that the source of the injury was, in some measure, independent of the business pursuit. In other words, the pursuit of babysitting neither created nor enhanced the risk; it merely placed a child in the way of a harm that was present in any event.2 In that sense, the pot of boiling water in Moore was no different from a defective homе appliance just as likely to have harmed anyone who happened to be present when it malfunctioned, irrespective of the homeowner's babysitting activities. See St. Martin,
The Kanaks also construe Moore to hold that the "ordinarily incident" language leaves only "peculiarly business activities" excluded from coverage. That is a misreading of Moore, however. Moore acknowledged that the exclusionary language of the policy at issue in that case could be read to suggest "that the nature of the activity determines coverage and that only peculiarly business activities are excluded."
Ultimately, it is difficult to characterize the administration of CPR as ordinarily incident to the pursuit of anyone except paramedics and other trauma care specialists. It is clear in this case, however, that CPR was applied within the context of child care that Mrs. Thoele was paid to provide. As the Illinois court observed in Moore, "[c]hild care for compensation is not ordinarily incident to the conduct of a household, and contemplates the exercise of due care to protect the child from household activities and conditions."
We must finally consider whether the pertinent policy language is ambiguous, such that Mr. Thoele is entitled to coverage despite our belief that the Kanaks' claim otherwise falls outside the scope of the policy. Moore concluded that the particular facts at issue in that case reasonably could be interpreted to fall within or without the business pursuits exclusion, and the court cited this ambiguity as an alternatе basis for its holding in favor of the insured.
As we noted at the outset of our discussion, the meaning of the exception for "activities ordinarily incident to a non-business pursuit" is not self-evident, and we are more than a little puzzled as to why insurers like Aetna have not attempted a better articulation of the exception in the wake of сases like Moore. Nonetheless, although we agree that the policy could be more clear in this regard, it does not strike us as ambiguous in the context of the facts before us. Courts must be particularly vigilant in recognizing ambiguities where exclusions from coverage are concerned. Playboy Enterprises,
III. CONCLUSION
Any injury that Calvin Thoele may have caused Angela Kanak in attempting to resuscitate her arose from the babysitting business of Sharon Thoele and thus falls within the business pursuits exclusion of the Thoeles' home insurance policy. The exception to this exclusion for activities ordinarily incident to non-business pursuits does not apply, as Calvin Thoele's efforts were an inherent part of the care Sharon Thoele was paid to provide Angela. The district court was therefore correct in concluding that the policy did not provide coverage to Calvin Thoele in this instance and that Aetna bore no duty to defend or indemnify him.
AFFIRMED.
Notes
Many jurisdictions, including Illinois, have recognized an "innocent co-insured" exception in cases where one insured engages in misdeeds which, if coverage were denied, would unfairly burden other members of the household--for example, where one spouse sets fire to the family home without the other spouse's knowledge. See Economy Fire & Casualty Co. v. Warren,
We also note that some courts have relied on severability clauses to find coverage for a co-insured despite exclusions that would otherwise deny coverage based on the specified acts of "an" or "any" insured. E.g., Premier Ins. Co. v. Adams,
Of course, but for the homeowner's business as a babysitter, the child in all likelihoоd would not have been present in her home. However, Moore rejected that point as a basis for determining whether the exclusion for business pursuits applied.
One might argue that the child's injury in Moore was due not to the extraneous act of boiling water but rather to the home-owner's failure to supervise the child adequately. A number of jurisdictions have indeed taken that approach, thus deeming a variety of in-home day сare injuries excluded from coverage. See, e.g., U.S. Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Heltsley,
It would be difficult to imagine just what activities could be characterized as "peculiarly business activities" given the broad spectrum of endeavors in which a homeowner can engage for either business or non-business reasons. As a member of the court suggested at oral argument, one might practically have to be manufacturing steel before she could be said to be engaging in a peculiarly business activity
