Minor Daughter of Divorced Parents Was Resident of Father’s Home, Rhode Island Supreme Court Rules

June 30, 2015

The Rhode Island Supreme Court has ruled that the minor daughter of divorced parents, who lived with her mother but who regularly stayed at her father’s home for overnight visits twice per week, was a resident of the father’s home for the purpose of determining coverage under the provisions of his homeowner’s insurance policy.

The Case

After Christopher Henderson and Denise Luppe divorced, their minor daughter lived with her mother but regularly stayed at her father’s home for overnight visits twice per week. One time while she was there, she was bitten by her father’s dog and injured.

Her mother brought a personal injury suit on the girl’s behalf against her father, who sought a defense under the terms of his homeowner’s insurance policy with Peerless Insurance Company.

Peerless responded by filing a declaratory judgment action, seeking a declaration that the girl was a resident of her father’s household and, therefore, was excluded from coverage for the injuries that she had sustained when she was bitten by the dog.

The trial court held that the girl was a resident of her father’s home and concluded that there was no coverage for her injuries under the Peerless policy.

The dispute reached the Rhode Island Supreme Court.
The Rhode Island Supreme Court’s Decision

The Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed.

In its decision, the court found that the policy term, “residents of your household,” was “not ambiguous.” The court noted the “common existence of multiple residences.” Being a resident, it said, implied more than being a “mere transient guest” because a resident was someone who had “a home in a particular place.”

The court observed that shared-custody arrangements were “increasingly frequent in our society,” adding that a child “may call multiple dwellings his or her home.”

The court then found that the daughter was a resident of her father’s household. It observed that:

  • she regularly was present in her father’s home subject to an amicable custody agreement and judgment of divorce;
  • various items of her clothing and personal belongings could be found throughout the house and in the home’s second bedroom, to the extent that she needed little more than an occasional bag on her twice-weekly visits;
  • her visitation arrangement was regular, the parties had every intention of continuing the custody agreement on the date of the incident, and, in fact, it did continue on the same schedule even after her injuries; and
  • her grandparents and cousins often would visit her at her father’s home.

Accordingly, the court declared, the “nature of this type of presence in her father’s home” established that the girl was there for more than “a mere transitory period.” The court acknowledged that the girl was listed as residing in her mother’s home for purposes of school enrollment, that what little mail she received was delivered to her mother’s home, and that her mother claimed her on her tax returns. The court said that although these factors supported an argument that the girl was a resident of her mother’s home, they did not disprove that she also resided with her father. She was a resident of her father’s home on the day she was injured because it was a place at which she had a “recent history of physical presence together with circumstances that manifest an intent to return to the residence within a reasonably foreseeable period,” the court concluded.

The case is Peerless Ins. Co. v. Luppe, No. 2014-99, No. 2014-100 (R.I. June 17, 2015).

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  • Robert Tugander





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