Bin with wheels is not a ‘vehicle’ (US)

Patrick Bracher, Director at Norton Rose Fulbright

A New York Appeals Court unsurprisingly found that a recycling bin with wheels, which ruptured a gas line used by residents of an apartment building, is not a ‘vehicle’.

An all risks policy exclusion did not apply if there was ‘direct loss causing physical damage to covered property from vehicles’. The court said that not everything with wheels is a ‘vehicle’, as that word is commonly understood. A vehicle focuses on transportation or conveyance. Even though the wheels on the bin helped with moving it to the dump truck, it was not used in the ordinary sense to transport people or goods. The policy exclusion therefore applied.

One wonders what our courts would say about the wheeled trolleys used by waste recyclers that we see careering downhill on our streets transporting both the collector and the goods for recycling.

The case is 1070 Park Avenue Corp v Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company.

First published by: Financial Institutions Legal Snapshot