Auto-Owners Mutual Insurance Company v. Beverly Granger

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-2705
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Auto-Owners Mutual Insurance Company
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Beverly Granger
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Western District of Missouri - Joplin
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Submitted: September 18, 2025
Filed: January 14, 2026
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Before COLLOTON, Chief Judge, ERICKSON and STRAS, Circuit Judges.
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STRAS, Circuit Judge.
The issue here is whether an automobile-insurance policy unambiguously
subjects underinsured-motorist claims by two spouses to a single $250,000
per-person limit. The district court concluded it did. With another reasonable
interpretation available, however, we reverse.

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I.
Randy Granger suffered severe injuries in a car accident. The other driver’s
insurer paid out to the policy limit of $25,000. Short of what he needed to cover his
injuries, Randy filed a claim under his own policy for underinsured-motorist
benefits, which come into play when “a tortfeasor’s automobile[-]insurance policy
limits are insufficient to cover the loss.” Jones v. Kennedy, 108 S.W.3d 203, 206
n.1 (Mo. Ct. App. 2003). Auto-Owners Mutual Insurance Company, his insurer,
then paid out to its per-person limit of $250,000.
Beverly, Randy’s wife, also filed an underinsured-motorist claim with
Auto-Owners. Hers was for loss-of-consortium damages to cover the decline in
“affection, care, companionship, and services” from Randy’s injuries. Wright v.
Barr, 62 S.W.3d 509, 537 (Mo. Ct. App. 2001). Treating Beverly’s request as purely
derivative of Randy’s, it refused to pay because the per-person limit for
underinsured-motorist benefits had already been reached.
The next stop was federal court. Auto-Owners filed first, seeking a
declaration that it owed nothing more to the Grangers. Beverly counterclaimed for
breach of contract based on the insurer’s refusal to pay. The district court sided with
Auto-Owners on both claims at summary judgment. In its view, Beverly’s
loss-of-consortium claim “necessarily and inseparably follow[ed]” the one covering
Randy’s injuries. (Emphasis added). Our task on appeal is to figure out whether the
policy supports the decision to group the two claims as one.
II.
We review the interpretation of an insurance policy de novo. See Great Am.
All. Ins. Co. v. Windermere Baptist Conf. Ctr., Inc., 931 F.3d 771, 773 (8th Cir.
2019). Everyone agrees that Missouri law controls, so we apply the policy’s “plain
and ordinary meaning . . . , looking [at it] ‘as a whole’ and resolving any ambiguities
in favor of the insured.” Verto Med. Sols., L.L.C. v. Allied World Specialty Ins. Co.,

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996 F.3d 912, 913 (8th Cir. 2021) (quoting Ritchie v. Allied Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co.,
307 S.W.3d 132, 135 (Mo. banc 2009)).
A.
The starting point is the declarations page, which “state[s] the policy’s
essential terms in an abbreviated form.” Owners Ins. Co. v. Craig, 514 S.W.3d 614,
617 (Mo. banc 2017) (citation omitted). At the top, it lists Randy and Beverly as the
named insureds. Farther down, it introduces the coverage limits. The row for
underinsured-motorist benefits sets a per-person limit of $250,000 and a total limit
of $500,000 per “occurrence,” which the policy defines as “an accident that results
in bodily injury or property damage.”
When we “look elsewhere to determine the scope of coverage,” the policy
explains what it covers and when, the exclusions and limits of liability, and various
other conditions. Id. (citation omitted). As relevant here, the “COVERAGE”
section extends underinsured-motorist coverage to “automobile[s] you do not own,”
like the company truck Randy was driving when the accident occurred. In those
situations, Auto-Owners “will pay compensatory damages, including but not limited
to loss of consortium, you are legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator
of any underinsured automobile for bodily injury you sustain.”
Here, the key interpretive question is the identity of “you.” The policy defines
the term as “any named insured shown in the Declarations and . . . [the] named
insured’s spouse who resides in the same household.”1 See Shelter Mut. Ins. Co. v.
Sage, 273 S.W.3d 33, 38 (Mo. Ct. App. 2008) (explaining that, in general,
“definitions in an insurance policy are controlling as to the terms used within the
1 The parties briefed and argued the case in the district court based on an earlier
version of the policy, which had a slightly different definition. It defined “you” as
“the first named insured shown in the Declarations and . . . your spouse who resides
in the same household.” Whichever version we apply, the outcome remains the
same.

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policy”). Including both Randy and Beverly, as the definition does, yields two
reasonable interpretations, one that blocks Beverly from recovering
loss-of-consortium damages and another that allows it.
1.
The first is the district court’s interpretation, which results in Auto-Owners
owing her nothing. The scope-of-coverage provision, quoted above, requires
Auto-Owners to pay “you” underinsured-motorist benefits, including for loss of
consortium, “for bodily injury you sustain.” (Emphases added). If Beverly has
sustained no “bodily injury,” then she cannot receive “compensatory damages,” for
loss of consortium or otherwise. Getting there requires the “you” entitled to
compensatory damages to be the same “you” that suffered bodily injury. See
Shaffner v. Farmers Mut. Fire Ins. Co. of St. Clair Cnty., 859 S.W.2d 902, 907 (Mo.
Ct. App. 1993) (“When words are used in one sense in one part of a contract, and
such words are again used in the same contract, they are as a general rule deemed to
have been used in the same sense as in the first instance.” (citation omitted)). It is a
straightforward application of the presumption of consistent usage. See Antonin
Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 170
(2012) (describing the canon); cf. 3M Co. v. Comm’r, 154 F.4th 574, 580 (8th Cir.
2025) (applying it to a statute).
One other textual clue supports this reading. Underinsured-motorist benefits
are “for bodily injury you sustain.” (Emphasis added). Read literally, the use of the
word “for,” which means “because” or “on account of,” implies that all
compensatory damages flow from the bodily injury of whomever suffers it.
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 886 (2002). Under this view, any
loss-of-consortium payments to Beverly, to the extent they are available, would
“necessarily and inseparably follow[]” Randy’s recovery, just as the district court
concluded. Cf. Ward v. Am. Fam. Ins. Co., 783 S.W.2d 921, 923 (Mo. Ct. App.
1989) (noting that, “[u]nder Missouri Law, a husband’s claim for loss of consortium
is derivative of his wife’s claim for bodily injury” in the sense that it does not stem

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from “a separate and distinct ‘bodily injury’”). It would make Beverly’s recovery
“derivative” of whatever Randy receives, subjecting everything that can be
recovered to his $250,000 per-person limit. Id.
2.
Although the district court’s interpretation is reasonable, so is another one. It
comes from the interplay between the policy’s scope-of-coverage provision, which
“includ[es] . . . loss of consortium,” and Missouri’s treatment of those claims. Under
Missouri law, “[t]he cause of action for loss of consortium seeks to compensate the
uninjured spouse.” Kingman v. Dillard’s, Inc., 643 F.3d 607, 615 (8th Cir. 2011)
(emphasis added); see Thompson v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 207
S.W.3d 76, 113 (Mo. Ct. App. 2006) (explaining that “for one spouse to recover for
loss of consortium, the other spouse must have a valid claim for personal injury”
(emphasis added)). The idea is that this background principle allows Beverly, who
is the “uninjured spouse,” Kingman, 643 F.3d at 615, to recover these damages, so
the insurance policy must reflect that understanding too, absent language to the
contrary. See Cano v. Travelers Ins. Co., 656 S.W.2d 266, 271 (Mo. banc 1983);
2 Jordan R. Plitt et al., Couch on Insurance § 22:50 (3d ed. 2025 update) (explaining
that “where technical terms have a well-recognized legal meaning, they should be
understood as used in their technical and legal sense, at least where neither the
context nor any statutory or charter provision indicates a broader use”).
The only potential stumbling block comes from the fact that each reference to
“you” in the scope-of-coverage provision arguably refers to the same person. But a
closer look reveals that the definition has an “and” that can be read disjunctively.
See Burns v. Smith, 303 S.W.3d 505, 511 (Mo. banc 2010) (noting that “and” can
take meanings equivalent to “or”). As a reminder, it says that “[y]ou . . . means any
named insured shown in the Declarations and . . . [the] named insured’s spouse who
resides in the same household.” (Emphasis added). Each instance of “you” could
be Randy or Beverly in either role. See id. Read that way, a favorable interpretation
for Beverly emerges: “you [(Beverly)] are legally entitled to recover . . . for bodily

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injury you [(Randy)] sustain[ed].” Randy’s bodily injury, in other words, becomes
the hook for the loss-of-consortium damages Beverly is trying to recover, consistent
with how Missouri has defined the cause of action.
No longer would the $250,000 per-person limit be a barrier to recovery. See
Cano, 656 S.W.2d at 271. It is, after all, per person, allowing each spouse to recover
for their own damages subject to payments by the tortfeasor’s insurer and the
$500,000 per-occurrence limit. See Maddox v. Truman Med. Ctr., Inc., 727 S.W.2d
152, 154 (Mo. Ct. App. 1987) (“Though a consortium claim is derivative from the
injured spouse’s claim . . . the consortium claim and the underlying claim exist to
compensate the different losses the two spouses suffer.” (emphasis added)). It would
not matter that Beverly suffered no “bodily injury” herself. See Cano, 656 S.W.2d
at 271; cf. Ward, 783 S.W.2d at 923–24 (discussing a different policy’s provisions,
which placed a limit on “each person,” tied it to the “bodily injury sustained by [that]
person,” and made the “each[-]accident” amount “[s]ubject to the limit for each
person”).
Nor would it result in the improper stacking of claims. “‘Stacking’ refers to
an insured’s ability to obtain multiple insurance coverage benefits for an injury . . . .”
Ritchie, 307 S.W.3d at 135 (citation omitted). “An anti-stacking clause,” which is
enforceable for underinsured-motorist coverage, “prohibits the insured from
collecting on multiple coverage items or policies from the same insurer for a single
accident.” Hall v. Allstate Ins. Co., 407 S.W.3d 603, 608 (Mo. Ct. App. 2012)
(citation omitted). The Auto-Owners policy has one that prevents the
underinsured-motorist coverage from increasing “regardless of . . . the number of
automobiles shown or premiums charged in the Declarations . . . [and] the number
of claims made.”
Here, the Grangers are not trying to circumvent the limits through stacking
the coverages on multiple vehicles. See, e.g., Ritchie, 307 S.W.3d at 135 (describing
an insured seeking benefits for “two or more separate vehicles under separate
policies” or “one policy which covers more than one vehicle” as examples of

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stacking). Rather, they are relying on the policy, read in light of Missouri law, to
seek coverage for distinct losses suffered by each spouse from a single accident. See
Maddox, 727 S.W.2d at 154 (explaining that loss-of-consortium and bodily-injury
claims “exist to compensate the different losses the two spouses suffer”). Through
this lens, Beverly’s reading of the policy is reasonable, even if it may not be the most
obvious one. See Cano, 656 S.W.2d at 270–71 (reaching a similar conclusion about
a loss-of-consortium claim in an uninsured-motorist case).
B.
In sum, the Auto-Owners policy “is poorly drafted, leaving open a question
of what it does and does not cover.” Am. Home Assurance Co. v. Pope, 591 F.3d
992, 1001 (8th Cir. 2010); see Cano, 656 S.W.2d at 271. Fortunately, “Missouri law
tells us what to do next.” Verto Med. Sols., 996 F.3d at 915. Under the canon of
contra proferentem, we construe any ambiguity “against the insurer,” the policy’s
drafter. Burns, 303 S.W.3d at 511–12; see Lutsky v. Blue Cross Hosp. Serv., Inc.,
695 S.W.2d 870, 875 n.7 (Mo. banc 1985) (explaining that “inconsistent provisions
will be construed in favor of the insured”). In this case, it requires us to adopt the
interpretation of the policy that favors Beverly, which will allow her to recover
loss-of-consortium damages.2 See Cano, 656 S.W.2d at 271.
2 Auto-Owners contends that we should nonetheless affirm, because Beverly
failed to exhaust her claim with the other motorist’s insurance policy before looking
to her own. One problem is that we do not know whether the other policy makes
loss-of-consortium damages available. Nor, even if it does, whether the $25,000
payment to Randy exhausted its limits. See Ward, 783 S.W.2d at 923 (explaining
that, in another policy, loss of consortium was subject to the same limit as bodily
injury). Without answers to these questions and others, we decline to decide the case
based on her alleged failure to exhaust. See Cont’l Cas. Co. v. State Farm Mut. Auto.
Ins. Co., 868 S.W.2d 547, 548–49 (Mo. Ct. App. 1993) (refusing to reach issues that
depended on the interpretation of a policy that was not in the record at summary
judgment).

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III.
In the absence of any genuine issue of material fact, we reverse the district
court’s judgment and remand for the entry of judgment in Beverly’s favor. See
Chamness v. Am. Fam. Mut. Ins. Co., 226 S.W.3d 199, 208 (Mo. Ct. App. 2007)
(reversing and remanding with directions to enter judgment in the insured’s favor
after concluding that a policy was ambiguous).
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