Under Colorado law, uninsured motorist coverage applies where insured’s are injured from the use of an uninsured motorist vehicle. The state of Colorado uses a two prong test for determining when injuries arise out of the use of a vehicle as set forth in State Farm v. Kastner. The first prong of the Kastner test addresses the vehicle use itself and requires that a claimant show that at the time of the crash the vehicle was being used in a manner contemplated by the policy, i.e. arising out of the inherent nature of the automobile. Under this analysis, unless the policy specifically provides otherwise the only use of a non-commercial passenger vehicle that is foreseeable at the time of contacting for the insurance is the use of the vehicle as a means of transportation when the policy is a non-commercial policy. The second prong on the State Farm v. Kastner test looks at the nature of the causal connection that must exist between the use and the injuries. This requires the claimant to show that except for the use of the vehicle, the accident or incident in question would never have taken place. Claimant must also demonstrate that the use of the vehicle and the injury that resulted were directly related or inextricably linked so that no independent significant act or non-use of the vehicle interrupted the “but for” causal chain between the covered use of the vehicle and the injury.
The Colorado Court of Appeals determined that neither the first nor the second prong of the Kastner test was met in the facts of this case. This ruling follows the mainstream of many states that have previously found that “the act of leaving the vehicle and inflicting a battery is an event of independent significance that is too remote, incidental, or tenuous, to support a causal connecttion with the use of the vehicle despite the fact the vehicle was used to stop and trap another vehicle.” Laycock v. American Family Ins. Co., 289 Ill App 3d 264, Allstate Ins. v. Skelton, 675 So. 2d 377.
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