Primary Jurisdiction Rarely Causes Severe Mental Anguish Show Your Work! Massachusetts Appeals Court Holds Expert’s Opinion Insufficient in Legal Malpractice CaseĬonnecticut Appellate Court Expands and Provides Guidance for Wrongful Conduct Rule The Importance of the Case Within the Case in Legal Malpractice Actions We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat – The Rise of AI-Enhanced Phishing Attacks What Constitutes an Adverse Employment Action in a Discrimination Claim? The District of Connecticut Weighs In Important Principle of Insurance Law Reinforced Tackling Unauthorized Messaging in the Financial Sector For additional information, please contact Connor Bateman at. And because courts have held that the public or livery conveyance exclusion applies when drivers “present their services” to the general public, the exclusion is arguably triggered even when the TNC driver is merely waiting for the application to connect to a customer.Īlthough the reach of this exclusion has yet to be fully examined in the context of ride-sharing services, these and other coverage issues will likely continue to arise. However, the public or livery conveyance exclusion often extends to uninsured motorist, collision, and comprehensive coverage. To account for this, the TNCs suggest that such damages may be covered by the at-fault driver’s policy or the TNC driver’s personal policy. For instance, although TNCs typically provide liability coverage for a driver who has the app turned on and is waiting to accept a ride, the TNC policies will not likely cover damages caused by someone or something else during that initial period. While some of these gaps have been addressed by commercial insurance policies provided by the TNCs, drivers may still be left without coverage in certain situations. This exclusion clearly applies to drivers actively transporting passengers and may even be triggered when the driver is simply using the ridesharing application to “troll” for potential customers. TNC drivers, who use their personal vehicles to transport passengers, will often have no coverage under their personal policies due to the public or livery conveyance exclusion. In light of the rising popularity of Transportation Network Companies (“TNCs”) such as Lyft and Uber, the coverage issues presented by this oft-forgotten exclusion should be carefully reexamined. The Court of Appeals rejected Haulers’ argument that the policy’s public or livery exclusion barred coverage, reasoning that the exclusion was inapplicable absent evidence that the plaintiff “used his vehicle indiscriminately to transport members of the general public for hire, or regularly rented out his vehicle for hire.” The court recognized, however, that the exclusion would apply in cases where the driver “presents his services indiscriminately to the general public for hire.” There was no evidence, however, that the plaintiff ever offered paid rides to the general public. At the time of the collision, the plaintiff was giving a ride to a female friend who would occasionally pay the plaintiff to drive her into town. In Davenport, the plaintiff sustained injuries in a car accident, sued the other driver, and served his uninsured motorist carrier (Haulers) with a copy of the complaint. The Georgia Court of Appeals recently weighed in on the scope of this exclusion in Haulers Insurance Co. Most personal automobile insurance policies exclude coverage for damages that result from the ownership or operation of a vehicle used as a “public or livery conveyance.” Although typically undefined in the policy, this phrase has generally been understood to encompass vehicles that are “used indiscriminately in conveying the public, rather than being limited to certain persons and particular occasions or governed by special terms.” BlogLine Need a Lyft? Georgia Court of Appeals Decision Raises Coverage Questions for Ridesharing Services and Their Drivers
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