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"                      <p class=\"imgtitle\">Palmer</p>           HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) - The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled in favor of an insurance company in a case over whether a homeowner's policy would cover carbon monoxide-related injuries.<br /><br />Two medical students, Armenui Dzhgalian and Aida Melikyan, traveled to Connecticut in 2007 to participate in a month-long, unpaid internship at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Conn.<br /><br />During their internships, they lived with defendant Maria V. Nantes, a hospital employee, at her home in Ansonia, Conn.<br /><br />The two students suffered serious injuries after Nantes left her car running overnight in an attached garage, filling the house with carbon monoxide.<br /><br />At issue is whether the students' injuries are covered by Nantes' homeowners insurance policy, issued by plaintiff New London County Mutual Insurance Co.<br /><br />The insurer sued Nantes, the two medical students and Nantes' car insurer, Government Employees Insurance Co., seeking a declaration that Nantes' homeowners policy does not cover the students' injuries.<br /><br />New London, which argues that its policy excludes coverage for injuries \"arising out of the use of\" a motor vehicle, filed a motion for summary judgment.<br /><br />The trial court granted its motion and rendered judgment for the plaintiff. The defendants appealed.<br /><br />The state's high court, in an opinion that will be officially released Tuesday, affirmed the lower court's ruling.<br /><br />Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote the Court's opinion.<br /><br />The justice said it boils down to Nantes' act of leaving her car running in the garage.<br /><br />\"The defendants claim, rather, that leaving a car in one's garage does not constitute the use of a motor vehicle. We disagree,\" he wrote.<br /><br />\"When Nantes drove into the garage, exited the car and left it there upon entering the house, she was parking the car. Parking is plainly an employment of a car for some purpose of the user.<br /><br />\"Moreover, the act of parking does not fail to be an employment of a car for some purpose of the user merely because the user performs the act negligently, as Nantes did by exiting the car without turning it off.\"<br /><br />The defendants also argued that because a \"concurrent\" cause of the students' injuries was Nantes' act of closing the garage door -- and because that act is covered under the policy -- the injuries should, too, be covered.<br /><br />The Court deemed the covered event \"irrelevant,\" citing past case law.<br /><br /><em>From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by email at jessica@legalnewsline.com.</em>"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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