The Denver-based federal appeals court concluded last week that two vehicle occupants who were injured while swerving to avoid a man in the middle of Interstate 25 are not entitled to insurance benefits.

Plaintiffs Stephanie Mazur and Julia Wunder were in a vehicle insured by State Farm at the time of their wreck. The insurance policy provided coverage for injuries caused by accidents involving the “operation, maintenance, or use” of an uninsured vehicle.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit decided that, under the Colorado Supreme Court’s interpretation of state law, the policy did not cover a man’s decision to get out of his broken-down vehicle that was parked up to 300 feet away and walk into the plaintiffs’ travel lane.

“According to Plaintiffs, it is foreseeable that (1) vehicles will break down, (2) the occupants of those vehicles may go looking for help, and (3) they may cause a car accident when they do,” wrote Judge Carolyn B. McHugh in the panel’s April 17 order. “However, this series of events involved multiple independent significant acts and non-uses of the vehicle that prevent us from concluding that Plaintiffs’ injuries were ‘directly related or inextricably linked’ to that use.”

Shortly after midnight in April 2021, the plaintiffs, who were Colorado State University students, were driving through a remote part of New Mexico. Three hours earlier, an uninsured vehicle had broken down and the driver moved it into the wide median between the northbound and southbound lanes of I-25. He left to flag down help, while telling his elderly passenger to remain in the car.

Eventually, the passenger, William Westuk, exited the vehicle. He wandered onto the interstate, where he may have sat or fallen. The plaintiffs swerved to avoid him and their car rolled over several times. Another vehicle behind them struck and killed Westuk.

State Farm denied the plaintiffs’ uninsured motorist claims, reasoning their injuries did not arise from the operation, maintenance, or use of the broken-down, uninsured car. The plaintiffs sued for benefits in state court, prompting State Farm to transfer the case to federal court.

Last March, Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott T. Varholak resolved the case in favor of State Farm. He relied on a 2003 Colorado Supreme Court decision, State Farm v. Kastner, in which a woman sued for benefits after an assailant kidnapped and sexually assaulted her in her own vehicle. By 4-3, the Supreme Court decided a plaintiff’s injuries must arise from a “contemplated” use of the vehicle, and there must be “an unbroken causal chain between that use and the injury.”

Varholak concluded the plaintiffs’ injuries did not arise through a contemplated use of the broken-down car, which was parked in a safe area away from the highway.

Even if he agreed with the plaintiffs, “Mr. Westuk’s significant independent actions of leaving his vehicle and walking into the southbound lane of Interstate 25 interrupted the causal chain between the covered use of the vehicle and the injury,” Varholak added.

The plaintiffs appealed, arguing the Kastner case had nothing to do with their claims. They contended that Westuk was seeking emergency roadside assistance when he left the broken-down car, an activity inherent in vehicle operation.

“I would just disagree that an inoperable vehicle, for three hours, is still being used to cause injury across the side of the road 300 feet away,” State Farm’s attorney, Evan Bennett Stephenson, told the 10th Circuit panel during oral arguments.

Ultimately, the panel did not decide outright whether the broken-down vehicle’s use gave rise to the plaintiffs’ injuries. Instead, it found that Westuk’s actions in leaving the car were the independent cause of the accident.

“If Mr. Westuk had not fallen or walked onto the interstate, Plaintiffs’ accident would not have occurred as it did,” wrote McHugh.

The case is Mazur et al. v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company.