Ninth Circuit Affirms Application of Exclusion for "Pilot or Crew Member in an Aircraft"
In Woodworth v. Stonebridge Life Ins. Co., 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 15068 (9th Cir. July 8, 2009), the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment based on its interpretation of an exclusion for “Loss caused by or resulting from: . . . an injury while the Covered Person is acting as a pilot or crew member in an aircraft.” The dispute arose out of an airplane accident in which flight instructor Roger Woodworth lost his life. Plaintiff, the deceased’s wife, argued that the exclusion should not apply, since it was unknown whether her husband was actually controlling the aircraft at the time that it crashed. She asserted that, because the insurer bears the burden of showing that an exclusion applies, the exclusion would not apply unless Stonebridge proved that her husband was in control of the plane at the time of the crash.
The Ninth Circuit stated that summary judgment was properly granted in favor of Stonebridge because Mr. Woodworth was at least acting as a “crew member” during the entire flight, whether or not he was controlling the plane at the time of the crash. Although the term “crew member” was not defined, the court noted that a reasonable layperson’s definition of the term comported with the federal regulatory definition under 14 C.F.R. § 1.1, which defines crewmember as “a person assigned to perform duty in an aircraft during flight time.” The court went on to state, “[a]s the flight instructor and the only pilot certified to fly the twin-engine aircraft, Mr. Woodworth had duties related to the operation of the aircraft and was a “crew member” for purposes of the exclusion.” Thus, the insurance company was not required to prove that Mr. Woodworth was actually controlling the airplane at the time of the crash in order to apply the exclusion.
