Gulf Insurance Company v. Ronald Tilley, Carol Jo Tilley, Marcella Smith (A Minor), Patricia A. Smith
Cases that cite this one
51 later published cases cite this decision. The 24 that cite it most often are listed here.
- State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Moore (Ill. App. Ct. 1981)
- State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Reed (Tex. 1994)
- Moncivais v. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co. (Iowa 1988)
- Economy Fire & Casualty Co. v. Norma Jane Beeman and William A. Beeman (7th Cir. 1981)
- American States Insurance Co. v. Kiger (Ind. 1996)
- Wickner v. American Reliance Insurance (N.J. 1995)
- Allstate Insurance Co. v. Kelsey (Or. Ct. App. 1984)
- Bankers Standard Insurance Co. v. Olwell (Minn. 1981)
- Everett Cash Mutual Insurance Co. v. Taylor (Ind. 2010)
- Zulpo v. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co. of Arkansas, Inc. (Ark. Ct. App. 2007)
- Luneau v. Peerless Insurance (Vt. 2000)
- Rufener v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. (Wis. Ct. App. 1998)
- Vaughan v. State Farm Lloyds (Tex. App. 1997)
- Vermont Mutual Insurance v. Gambell (Vt. 1997)
- Pettinato v. Cigna Property & Casualty Co. (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1997)
- Indiana Gas Co., Inc. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. (District Court, N.D. Indiana 1996)
- Allstate Insurance Company v. Jerry Lee Brown, and Frank Orbik Jr. (7th Cir. 1994)
- Smith v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. (W. Va. 1994)
- CARROLL EX REL. CARROLL v. Boyce (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 1994)
- Thoele v. Aetna Casualty & Surety (7th Cir. 1994)
- Floyd v. Northern Neck Insurance (Va. 1993)
- Maryland Casualty Co. v. Hayes (Mo. Ct. App. 1992)
- Kirsch ex rel. Kirsch v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co. (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1992)
- MVG v. Lucas (La. Ct. App. 1991)
This list shows which later cases cite this one. It does not say how they treated it, and no review of that has been done. Not a substitute for Shepard’s or KeyCite — verify before relying.
Opinion
GULF INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
Ronald TILLEY, Carol Jo Tilley, Marcella Smith (a minor), Patricia A. Smith, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 16419.
United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.
March 5, 1968.
Milford M. Miller, Jr., Fort Wayne, Ind., Hugh E. Reynolds, Jr., Indianapolis, Ind., for appellant.
Carl G. Winter, Indianapolis, Ind., William S. Glickfield, Marion, Ind., for appellee.
Before SCHNACKENBERG, KILEY and CUMMINGS, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Plaintiff insurer, a Texas corporation, filed a diversity action seeking a declaratory judgment that the homeowner's policy it issued to Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Tilley, Indiana citizens, did not apply to a certain accident. On October 9, 1964, Mrs. Patricia Smith Wood employed Mrs. Tilley to be a baby-sitter for her two and one-half year old daughter, Marcella Smith. Mrs. Wood left her child at the Tilley residence about 8:00 a. m. Two hours later, Mrs. Tilley decided to prepare breakfast for herself and a guest. Mrs. Tilley plugged an electric percolator into a wall outlet and placed it on a 4-foot high counter between the eating area and the kitchen of her home. Marcella Smith was sitting at a child's table on the kitchen side of the counter and, while Mrs. Tilley was making pancakes, pulled the percolator cord, causing the hot coffee to spill and burn the child severely. Subsequently Marcella Smith filed a $71,900 damage suit against Mr. and Mrs. Tilley in the Circuit Court of Grant County, Indiana, where it is apparently still pending.
The insurance policy excluded coverage for any business pursuits of the insured "except * * * activities * * * which are ordinarily incident to non-business pursuits * * *." In a well-reasoned opinion, the District Court assumed that Mrs. Tilley's baby-sitting for compensation was a business pursuit within the policy exclusion. However, the Court held that the preparation of hot coffee was "incident to non-business pursuits" within the exception to the exclusion, observing that otherwise the excepting clause would be meaningless. On the basis of the District Court's opinion (280 F.Supp. 60), we agree that there was no exclusion from coverage under this policy.
The judgment is therefore affirmed.
SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge (concurring).
In the last full paragraph of the above opinion, it seems to me that the district court's reasoning would be more clearly set forth by noting that that court held that, giving meaning both to the exclusion and the exception, the preparation of hot coffee was incident to non-business pursuits and thus within the exception, viz., "business pursuit", excluded by the policy.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.