Global Hawk Insurance Company v. Century-National Insurance Company Court of Appeal, First District(February 29, 2012)

This case considered whether an endorsement provided under the Financial Responsibility laws for a truck company required it to reimburse a workers’ compensation carrier following an accident where the truck company’s policy did not include the vehicle involved in the accident on its schedule of covered vehicles.

Sebastian Padilla, an employee of Bluewater Environmental Services, was injured when his sanitation truck was rear-ended by Sarkis Zardaryan, an employee of E&Z Express Trucking Company. E&Z was insured under a commercial vehicle policy issued by Global Hawk Insurance Company. However, the truck Zardaryan was driving at the time of the accident was not listed on the schedule of covered vehicles under the policy, and Global Hawk denied coverage for the claim. This was despite the fact that pursuant to California’s Financial Responsibility laws, Global Hawk had issued an MCS-90 endorsement that obligated Global Hawk to provide coverage under certain conditions for all of its insured’s vehicles, regardless of whether they were described in the policy.

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