Chris Eldredge Containers, LLC v. Crum, 2025 Pa. Super. LEXIS 186
(April 24, 2025) Lazarus, P.J.
Judges: BEFORE: LAZARUS, P.J., KING, J., and LANE, J.
Chris Eldredge Containers, LLC (“Eldredge Containers”), appeals from the December 4, 2023, order, entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County, granting judgment on the pleadings in favor of Appellee Crum & Foster Specialty Insurance Company (“C&F”). By a separate order issued earlier on the same date, the [*2] trial court also granted judgment on the pleadings in favor of Appellee National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, PA (“National Union”). On appeal, Eldredge Containers raises issues pertaining to both orders. After careful review, we reverse and remand.
This appeal arises from an incident in which an Eldredge Containers employee, driving an Ottawa Terminal Tractor, backed into a stationary service truck owned by Safety-Kleen Systems, Inc. (“Safety-Kleen”), and occupied by its employee, Craig Logan. Logan, who alleged that he sustained injuries from the collision, filed an underlying suit that is currently pending in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County.
Eldredge Containers sought defense and indemnity from its three insurance carriers: C&F and Appellees National Union and Selective Insurance Company of America (“Selective”). All three carriers disclaimed coverage. On April 7, 2022, Eldredge Containers commenced a declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration that the insurers were required to provide it with indemnification and defense in connection with the underlying action.
On May 4, 2023, C&F, the general liability carrier, filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings. Relevantly, C&F had issued a Commercial General Liability policy to Eldredge Containers that provided coverage in the case of damages arising from bodily injury. The policy also contained an Absolute Auto, Aircraft, and Watercraft Exclusion Endorsement (“Absolute Auto Exclusion”) that excluded coverage for “[b]odily injury or property damage arising out of or resulting from the ownership, maintenance, use[,] or entrustment to others of any aircraft, auto[,] or watercraft.” C&F Commercial General Liability Policy, Absolute Auto Exclusion, 7/15/19, at 1 (internal quotation marks omitted). C&F argued that the Absolute Auto Exclusion was triggered by the underlying action because Logan’s Safety-Kleen service truck was an “auto” under the definition of the policy and, therefore, Logan’s alleged injuries arose out of the ownership or use of an “auto.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court considered the phrase “arising out of” in the context of an automobile insurance policy, and found it to be “vague or ambiguous,” and, therefore, “construed [it] strictly against the insurer and liberally in favor of the insured.” Manufacturers Cas. Ins. Co. v. Goodville Mutual Cas. Co., 403 Pa. 603, 170 A.2d 571, 573 (Pa. 1961). Subsequently, in Eichelberger, supra, this Court analyzed two insurance policies and found that, for purposes of an exclusionary clause, the phrase “arising out of” must be strictly construed against the insurer to “exclude only those injuries which are proximately caused by the automobile.” 434 A.2d at 752
As in Eichelberger, the causation standard in C&F’s Absolute Auto Exclusion requires that the bodily injury arise out of the use of an auto. It is, therefore, ambiguous and must be construed strictly against the insurer to exclude only those injuries that are proximately caused by the auto. See Manufacturers Cas. Ins. Co., 179 A.2d at 573; see also Eichelberger, 434 A.2d at 752. Here, the underlying complaint alleges that it was the Ottawa Terminal Tractor, a non-auto, and not the Safety-Kleen truck, that was the proximate cause of Logan’s injuries. (“[Plaintiff] was the occupant of a service truck that was stopped at the defendant’s business facility when suddenly, and without warning[,] defendant, John Doe[,] backed up a tractor trailer causing a significant impact with plaintiff’s vehicle.”). Therefore, Eldredge Containers is entitled to coverage because the Absolute Auto Exclusion is not triggered.
Additionally, the ownership clause in the Absolute Auto Exclusion is also ambiguous. That clause does not specify whose “ownership, maintenance, use, or entrustment to others of any [] auto” triggers the exclusion. This clause is “reasonably susceptible of different constructions and capable of being understood in more than one sense” when applied to a particular set of facts. Hymes, 29 A.3d at 1172. Thus, construed strictly against the insurer, the exclusion is triggered only by the insured’s “ownership, maintenance, use, or entrustment to others of” an auto. See Eichelberger, supra (ambiguous coverage clause to be interpreted broadly to afford greatest possible protection to insured). Here, the only auto at issue is Logan’s Safety-Kleen truck, which Eldredge Containers indisputably did not own, maintain, use, or entrust to others. Accordingly, we conclude that C&F and National Union have a duty to indemnify and defend Eldredge Containers in the underlying suit.7 We, therefore, find that the trial court erred in granting C&F and National Union’s motions for judgment on the pleadings. See Wilcha, 887 A.2d at 1257 (“Only where the moving party’s case is clear and free from doubt such that a trial would prove fruitless will an appellate court affirm a motion for judgment on the pleadings.”).
Order reversed. Case remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Jurisdiction relinquished. Judgment Entered.
• This accident involved an incident at work where there was said to be an injury where a trailer was backed into a stationary service truck.
• All insurance companies disclaimed coverage based on the exclusions that said there was no coverage for accidents arising out of an auto accident.
• The court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
• The phrase “arising out of auto accident” is said to be “ambiguous.”
• It is certainly ambiguous here, given the nature of the accident and as the case goes back to trial.
