APPEALS COURT REVERSES RULING ON TROOPER’S INSURANCE CLAIM; QUINCY MUTUAL COULD BE LIABLE FOR $1M CLAIM

Reversing a lower court ruling, the state Appeals Court has sent the insurance claim for a brain-damaged state trooper back for a full hearing in Plymouth County Superior Court.Friday’s decision leaves Quincy Mutual Fire Insurance Co. potentially liable for as much as $1 million in claims by former trooper and Marshfield native Ellen Engelhardt, who was permanently disabled when a drunken driver rammed her cruiser on Route 25 in Wareham in July 2003.

Quincy Mutual vice president Kevin Meskell declined comment. ‘‘It’s an ongoing case,’’ he said. Engelhardt, now 53, was sitting in her cruiser in the highway breakdown lane when it was rammed from behind by a 1991 Volvo driven by 18-year-old William Senne of Wayland.

The car was owned by his father, Peter Senne. Police estimated its speed at 90 mph when it hit Engelhardt’s cruiser. In January 2005 William Senne pleaded guilty to drunken driving and was sentenced to 2½ years in the Plymouth County jail, to be followed by five years of probation and 500 hours of community service.

Engelhardt now lives in a nursing home. She can’t talk or communicate, must be fed through a stomach tube and has undergone numerous surgeries. Soon after the accident, Quincy Mutual and its agent, the Fair & Yeager Insurance Agency, rejected Engelhardt’s personal-injury claims. They said the companies didn’t have to cover the claims because Peter Senne had failed to properly list his son as the car’s principal driver.

The Volvo had been a commercial vehicle for a company owned by Peter Senne. He dissolved the firm years before the accident, but had maintained a commercial policy for the Volvo and raised the bodily injury coverage to $1 million.

William Senne was listed as one of the vehicle’s drivers, but not as the most frequent driver, as was the case in 2003.

A Superior Court judge issued a summary-judgment ruling in favor of Quincy Mutual and Fair & Yeager. But yesterday the Appeals Court ruled that ‘‘the insured (Senne) is under no duty to identify changes that are material and notify the insurer of such changes,’’ because the Quincy Mutual policy apparently didn’t require Senne to report such details if not directly asked.

Absent such a duty, the decision added, ‘‘the insured's silence, even if it increases a risk of loss to the insurer, is not a ‘‘misrepresentation.’’