Wrongful Death Judgment but No Insurance to Pay It? Sauer v. Crews and the Coverage Trap in Commercial-Vehicle Cases

Published September 30, 2014 · Ohio Supreme Court

An 86-year-old woman is driving down a city street where a paving crew is working. A contractor has parked a flatbed trailer, without a permit, in a no-parking zone, blocking most of her lane. She strikes it and dies of her injuries. A judge finds the contractor solely at fault and awards her estate $251,552. Years later, the Ohio Supreme Court holds that the contractor's liability insurance does not cover the trailer at all. That is Sauer v. Crews, decided September 2, and it is a warning about how commercial-vehicle cases are won and lost on the insurance policy, not just on the facts.

What happened

The facts come from the Supreme Court's opinion in Sauer v. Crews, 140 Ohio St.3d 314, 2014-Ohio-3655. On November 24, 2006, Julia Augenstein's car collided with a flatbed trailer owned by Stinson Crews and Stinson Crews Trucking. Crews was doing paving work on Columbus Street in Grove City and had parked the trailer in a no-parking zone, blocking most of Ms. Augenstein's lane. She was 86 and died from her injuries.

Her executors brought survivorship and wrongful-death claims. The trial court held a bench trial on liability, found that Crews's negligence was the sole proximate cause of the crash, and entered a judgment of $251,552.04. Crews tried to blame Ms. Augenstein, arguing she failed to maintain an assured clear distance, had been drinking, and had reduced vision from macular degeneration. The Tenth District rejected all of that and affirmed the liability judgment in 2011.

So far, a clean win for the family. Then came the coverage fight.

The policy: "auto" versus "mobile equipment"

Crews had a commercial general-liability policy, commonly called a CGL policy, from Century Surety Company. A CGL policy covers a business's general liability for bodily injury, but it excludes injuries arising out of the use of an "auto." The policy defined "auto" to include a trailer designed for travel on public roads. It then carved out an exception: "auto" does not include "mobile equipment," a defined list of things like bulldozers, vehicles on crawler treads, and vehicles maintained primarily to carry permanently mounted road-construction equipment, plus a catch-all for vehicles maintained primarily for purposes other than transporting persons or cargo.

Crews argued the flatbed trailer, which hauled paving machinery to job sites, was "mobile equipment" because the paving machines it carried were not "cargo." The trial court and the Tenth District agreed the word "cargo" was undefined and ambiguous, and because ambiguities in an insurance policy are construed against the insurer, they found coverage.

The Supreme Court reversed, 6-1. It held that when a court decides whether a policy term is ambiguous, it must consider the context of the whole policy, not isolate a single word. Read in context, the mobile-equipment catch-all covered vehicles of the same type as the listed construction equipment. A road-going flatbed trailer is not that kind of vehicle. The trailer was therefore an "auto," the auto exclusion applied, and the CGL policy did not cover Ms. Augenstein's death.

Why this matters more than it sounds

For injured people, the practical lesson is not about policy drafting. It is about where the money comes from.

A judgment is a piece of paper. It becomes compensation only when an insurer pays it or the defendant has assets to satisfy it. Small contractors, trucking operations, and landscapers often have little beyond their equipment and a stack of insurance policies, each of which covers some risks and excludes others. A CGL policy covers the business's premises and operations but excludes autos. A commercial auto policy covers listed vehicles but may not cover an unlisted trailer. An umbrella policy may sit on top of one and not the other. When a crash involves a commercial vehicle, especially a trailer, a piece of equipment, or a vehicle at a work site, the question "which policy covers this?" can be worth more than the question "who was at fault?"

In Sauer, the estate won liability outright and then spent years litigating coverage, only to have the Supreme Court close the door on the CGL policy. The opinion does not tell us whether Crews had a commercial auto policy on the trailer or whether the family ultimately collected. That silence is the point.

How we approach commercial-vehicle and work-zone cases

When a client comes to us after a crash with a contractor's truck, a company trailer, or a vehicle at a construction site, identifying every potential source of recovery is one of the first tasks, not an afterthought.

• Every policy, every insured. We demand the commercial auto policy, the CGL policy, any umbrella or excess policy, and the policies of related entities. In Sauer, a dump truck and its owner were also involved in the paving operation; each additional party is another policy.
• The vehicle's status. Was the trailer listed on a schedule? Was it owned, hired, or borrowed? Was it being used on a public road or at a job site? These facts decide which policy responds, and they must be nailed down before vehicles are sold or records vanish. Our page on car and truck accident claims describes how we gather this evidence early.
• Federal and state regulations. Commercial carriers face minimum financial-responsibility requirements, and a company that is operating without required coverage has exposed itself in ways that matter at trial. See our page on truck accident claims.
• Your own coverage. If no commercial policy responds, the at-fault party may be, in legal effect, uninsured or underinsured. The victim's own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage can then become the primary source of recovery. We explained the basics in our post on UM/UIM coverage. This is one more reason to carry high UM/UIM limits and to have your own policy reviewed immediately after a serious crash.

What this means for you

If you lost a family member in a crash involving a commercial vehicle, a contractor, or a work zone, the wrongful-death claim itself is only half of the case. We explained who may bring a wrongful-death claim in Ohio in an earlier post; the other half is making sure that when the claim succeeds, there is a policy that must pay. Insurers like Century Surety will litigate coverage all the way to the Supreme Court rather than pay a quarter-million-dollar judgment, and the Sauer decision gives them a new argument: read the whole policy, not the ambiguous word.

The answer for families is to get a lawyer who starts the coverage investigation on day one, before the liability case is even filed, and who structures the claims to reach every policy that could respond. Learn more about our wrongful-death practice.