Joseph Boardman and Henry W. Boardman v. United Services Automobile Association, 470 So. 2d 1024

Summary

The non-Mississippi insurer made a contract in Nebraska with a Nebraska insured, the father, whose son took a summer job in Mississippi. The father had his son removed from the insurance policy when the son purchased a car in Mississippi. The son did not have title to the car until the day after he was involved in a car accident. The court answered the certified questions by applying Mississippi's "center of gravity" test to each question. In so doing, the court stated that (1) the question at issue did not involve the scope of the risk insured against but rather who were the parties entitled to benefits under the policy, (2) the factors under the "center of gravity" test pointed strongly to Nebraska as the state that ought to furnish the rule of decision governing adjudication of the coverage question, (3) Mississippi's public policy of refusing to enforce "owned vehicle exclusion clauses" was not so strong that the countervailing Nebraska rule should have been ignored, and (4) ...