Kalell v. Mutual Fire & Automobile Insurance Co.

LARSON, Justice.

When defendant Rodney Petersen removed a dead limb from a tree by attaching a rope and pulling it with his pickup, a piece of the limb struck the plaintiff, Ho-sien Kalell. Kalell sued Petersen and his wife Betty, as well as Kalell’s own underin-sured motorist carrier, Mutual Fire and Automobile Insurance Company. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company, which was the carrier for Petersen’s homeowners insurance, intervened and requested a ruling that its homeowners policy did not provide coverage. The district court, in the first stage of its bifurcated proceeding, held that Farm…