Selected Risks Insurance v. Willis

Murphy, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant, Selected Risks Insurance Company, against whom a summary judgment was entered below, manifests in this appeal a dogged tenacity — but little if anything else. The policy of insurance at issue was a “Volunteer Fire Company Blanket Accident Policy,” under which Selected insured “each and every member of the Volunteer Fire Company known as Kent County Fire Chiefs Association & Kent Firemen’s Rescue Squad” in the sum of $10,000 against, among other things, loss of life suffered “by reason of and in the course of duties as a member of said Fire Company. James W. Willis, a seventeen year old, whose personal ⁶⁷⁶ representative is the appellee, was an active member of the Kennedyville Volunteer Fire Company and concededly an insured under the policy at issue.

The affidavits filed by the claimant in support of her motion for summary judgment state these facts. The Kennedyville Volunteer Fire Company had held a picnic each year since 1964, a main reason being “to provide . . . sponsored recreation to build esprit de corps and morale among the [members of the fire company] of a type beneficial to aid in the members’ working together in training for fighting and in fighting fires and, to further the recruiting efforts of the [company] both in preventing high turnover of trained men and in attracting members.” The members of the fire company were told in advance of the picnics, that they were annual affairs “organized, sponsored, and made to occur” by the fire company, and that the members of the company were expected to attend “unless they had a reasonable reason not to so attend.” The Chief of the fire company asked Willis to go to the picnic area early on August 8, the day the picnic was to be held in 1971, “to help set up the affair” which Willis did. He remained at the picnic “to take part in the activities which included swimming in the river nearby.” While Willis was so swimming and while “the picnic was officially in progress,” he accidentally drowned “although valiant efforts were made to save him.” When he drowned, Willis was not under the influence of alcohol (a policy exclusion) and was not participating “in any athletic game or contest” of any kind (another policy exclusion). Selected did not controvert the facts set out by the claimant in support of her motion for judgment; instead, it claimed in its answer that it was entitled to have a jury draw and determine inferences from the facts.

Selected framed its contention in these words in its memorandum in support of its answer to the motion for summary judgment: “Whether in law these facts show loss for ⁶⁷⁷ bodily injuries suffered by reason of and in the course of duties as a member of the fire company, and not otherwise, and effected independently and exclusively of all other causes, is clearly questionable. A party against whom inferences are sought to be drawn is entitled to the inference most favorable to his contentions In its brief on appeal, Selected submits that whether Willis’ swimming at the picnic was or was not for pleasure only and his