This is a GQ type question but it was so mundane that I felt it should go into MPSIMS instead: It should be something akin to “weasel word” but I wonder if there’s a more specific legal term for this:
Hypothetical insurance company: “We cover all **reasonable **damages 100%.” Problem is, they define whatever they don’t want to pay, as “unreasonable”. Drunk driver hit your car? Not “reasonable” for us to pay. Someone stole your car? Not “reasonable” for us to pay. You got rear-ended at a traffic intersection. Not “reasonable” for us to pay.
Is there a legal terminology for this sort of tactic?
I think, “Weasel Words”, pretty much sums it up. Weasel words are, by definition, an informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating the impression that an authoritative and/or meaningful statement has been made, when, in fact, only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated, enabling the specific meaning to be denied if the statement is challenged.
Not sure about the term for it but my favorite example is from Lifelock. My mother got scammed into signing up for it. So I read her the warranty on it.
They only guarantee protection for those things their software is designed to catch. So if their software is an null program then they are completely off the hook.
More of an empty promise type thing than weasel words.
I don’t know if you’re kidding or not, but “Acts of God” are actually pretty well defined as a term of art in contract law. You could call the same thing “unforeseeable natural disasters” and it wouldn’t have the religious connotation, but it would still be the same thing.
There was a case in Paso Robles some years ago: Limb broke off city-owned tree (in a storm, IIRC), landed on parked car, crunched roof of car. Owner sued city in Small Claims Court, won some money to repair car.
City appealed, which forces the claim into Superior (non-small-claims) Court, and claimed it was an Act of God, and won. Car owner got zilch.
Not exactly like the Red Sea drowning the entire Egyptian army. But if one car crunched by one tree limb can be defended as an Act of God, what can’t?
My understanding is that “reasonable” has the same standard. An insurance company can’t just use its own definition of what’s reasonable; it has to use the commonly accepted legal definition of what’s reasonable. It’s something like “what a typical person would judge to be reasonable in a given set of circumstances if they were familiar with all the facts of the situation.”
In addition to the points raised by others that the meanings of the terms are well understood, there is an additional aspect. Contracts terms are construed against the drafter. The so called Contra proferentem rule. basically it means if you wrote it, you have to specify exactly what it means, in the contract itself. This would mitigate the situations mentioned in the OP.
I would use the term “limiting words” or “qualifying words”.
For all that “reasonable” is somewhat vague, it’s a term that has a well established validity at law such that it neither renders the insurers obligation meaningless nor locks them into payment of every loss payable, and leaves the question of what is payable ultimately in the hands of a court.
It would IMHO only be weasel words if the contract also stated that what was and was not reasonable was at the insurers entire and unfettered discretion, or something like that.
You miss the entire point. Merely owning land on which there is a tree does not usually make one liable for all damage caused by the tree. For one to be liable, one would usually have to have been negligent regarding the circumstances of the damage. The claimant I would think lost not because the limb falling was an Act of God as such but because it was an Act of of God as opposed to an incident caused by negligence.
To answer your question; something involving negligence by the defendant.
Why did the car owner not make an insurance claim under the comprehensive part of the automobile policy (assuming the owner carried comprehensive coverage)? That way, he or she is made whole, and the insurance company is left subrogating against the city. In other words, the insurance company (and their experienced and expert lawyers) sues the city for the loss, in order to make up for what they had to pay out on the claim. Car owner doesn’t even have to be involved, at that point.
Of course, if there was no comprehensive coverage, then the car owner is on the hook. But if there was … why not make a claim under that coverage?
Recently I came across a case where a the words “at the first parties complete and absolute discretion” (power to cancel a software license) were held to be subject to actions which were reasonable in the circumstances. Basically, if you want to be able to make the other guy surrender his first-born, it better be specified in the contract.
Recently there was an op-ed by the president of Middlebury College affirming the school’s commitment to free speech on campus. Only she repeatedly qualified support as being for “civil” free speech.
Obviously you could drive a truck through the gap left by that qualifier.
The courts would never let an insurance company get away with those shenanigans. Companies are forced to put those phrases in because there are customers who want to enter their car into a crash derby and then file a claim.
Anyone who has worked in a company which provides goods or services has seen an appalling number of attempted returns made in bad faith.
The problem is that while the two ends are reasonably clear, with insurance companies paying for stolen cars and not paying for crash derbies, there are gray lines.