No Medical Insurance Payments in DUI Case

Insurer Can Refuse Medical Payments in DUI Case

Appeals Court Ruling Involves 1998 Crash

POSTED: 1:44 p.m. EDT September 24, 2003

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A federal appeals court has ruled in a Connecticut case that being drunk while driving can mean the insurance company does not have to pay medical bills.

National Health Insurance Co. does not have to pay $242,235 in medical bills incurred by a 19-year-old Guilford man who was driving drunk when he crashed his car in 1998, the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled.

The court found the policy from National Health that excluded coverage for expenses incurred as the result of intoxication is enforceable.

"It's an important decision because the ruling reinforces Connecticut public policy against drunken driving," William H. Clendenen Jr., the attorney for the Texas-based insurance company in the case said Tuesday.

Clendenen said the intoxication exclusion is a standard clause in National Health's policies, but some other companies do not have it.

John F. Wynne Jr., lawyer for plaintiffs Oliver Bishop III and his son, Oliver Bishop IV, said the intoxication exclusion clause "is hardly ever found in a group health insurance policy."

Wynne said the case against the insurance company is over, but other cases brought by the Bishops are pending, including one against the insurance agent who sold Bishop the policy and one against the New Haven liquor store where the underage Bishop made his purchases.

On March 14, 1998, Oliver Bishop IV, then 19, purchased a case of beer and a half pint of liquor at a store in New Haven and went to a party in Guilford, where he drank the alcohol, police said. Bishop got into an accident early the next morning after he got into his pickup truck and hit a stone wall and two trees, police said.