GEICO STD Lawsuit: $5.2M Award Reversed, Coverage Denied

The GEICO STD lawsuit ended with no payout. A Missouri woman known in court filings as M.O. alleged she contracted HPV from her fiancé during sex in his insured car, won a $5.2 million arbitration award against him, and tried to collect from his GEICO auto policy. The Missouri Supreme Court vacated the award in January 2023, and in August 2024 the Eighth Circuit ruled that GEICO’s policy does not cover the injury at all.

What Happened Between M.O. and Brauner

In late 2017, M.O. had unprotected sex with her then-fiancé, Kansas resident Martin Brauner, inside his 2014 Hyundai Genesis. M.O. later alleged Brauner knew he had human papillomavirus and did not tell her, and that she contracted the virus and developed cancer linked to it.¹

In February 2021, M.O. notified GEICO that she planned to bring a bodily injury claim under Brauner’s auto policy and offered to settle for the $1 million policy limit. Her demand letter closed with, “Let me know.” GEICO refused, taking the position that the injury did not arise from the normal use of the car.²

How the $5.2 Million Arbitration Award Happened

After GEICO denied coverage in April 2021, M.O. and Brauner used Missouri Revised Statute § 537.065. That statute lets an injured person and a defendant agree that any judgment will be collected only from the defendant’s insurer, not from the defendant personally. They submitted the dispute to private arbitration without telling GEICO.³

The arbitrator found Brauner had “negligently infected” M.O. and that sexual activity in the car “directly caused, or directly contributed to cause” her HPV infection. The award was $5.2 million for medical expenses and pain and suffering.⁴

M.O. then filed suit in Jackson County, Missouri circuit court to confirm the award. GEICO moved to intervene 25 days after learning of the case, but the trial court entered judgment confirming the award while GEICO’s motion was still pending. The court later let GEICO in but refused to vacate the judgment.³

Why the Missouri Supreme Court Threw the Award Out

On January 10, 2023, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously vacated the $5.2 million judgment. The court held that under the 2017 version of § 537.065, an insurer has a “statutory, absolute, and non-discretionary right to intervene” within 30 days of receiving notice of a claimant-tortfeasor agreement. Because GEICO filed its motion inside that window, the circuit court should not have entered judgment before allowing GEICO to participate.²³

The case went back to the lower court. The Missouri Supreme Court declined to say what GEICO could do on remand, calling any such guidance “purely advisory.”³

The Separate Federal Fight Over Coverage

While the state proceedings were unfolding, GEICO opened a second front. In April 2021 it filed a federal declaratory judgment action asking a court to rule the policy did not cover M.O.’s injuries at all. After a jurisdictional detour through the District of Kansas, the case landed with Judge Fernando J. Gaitan Jr. in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.⁵

The Punctuation Argument

The federal case turned on a single sentence in GEICO’s Kansas Family Automobile Insurance Policy. It said GEICO would pay damages the insured is legally obligated to pay because of: “1. bodily injury, sustained by a person, and; 2. damage to or destruction of property, arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the owned auto or a non-owned auto.”⁵

Brauner and M.O. seized on the line break and semicolon between the two numbered clauses. Their reading: the phrase “arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use” applied only to the property damage clause, not to bodily injury. If that were right, GEICO would owe coverage for any bodily injury, whether or not it had anything to do with a car. Brauner’s own attorney called the policy language “sloppy.”⁶

District Court Rules for GEICO

On March 10, 2023, Judge Gaitan granted summary judgment for GEICO. He rejected the punctuation argument and found the policy “unambiguously required covered bodily injury to arise out of the use of the automobile.” He also wrote that “consensual sexual relations inside a car do not constitute a ‘use’ of the automobile within the meaning of the subject policy,” adding that “the mere fact that an accident takes place in or near the automobile does not impose responsibility upon the insurer.”⁷

The court also ruled that GEICO’s umbrella policy did not cover the claim because it contained an explicit exclusion for the transmission of communicable diseases.⁷

The Eighth Circuit’s Final Word

M.O. and Brauner appealed. A three-judge panel of Circuit Judges Raymond Gruender, Steven Colloton, and Michael Melloy heard argument on June 12, 2024. GEICO’s attorney told the panel coverage should apply only when someone is “using an auto as an auto… for vehicular purposes.” Judges pressed M.O.’s attorney on whether his theory would also make GEICO liable for unwanted pregnancies from sex in cars.⁸

On August 2, 2024, the panel ruled unanimously for GEICO. On the punctuation question, the court applied the series-qualifier canon and held that a reasonable policyholder would read “arising out of” to modify both clauses, so bodily injury coverage still requires a connection to the use of the car.⁹

On causation, Judge Gruender wrote that “the automobile was nothing more than the situs of M.O.’s injury.” The car was not being driven, the engine was not running, and it was not being used to transport anyone. Gruender wrote there was “no causal relationship” between the decision to shelter in a car for a sexual encounter, as opposed to a house or nowhere at all, and Brauner’s transmission of HPV.⁸

The court distinguished Garrison v. State Farm, a 1995 Kansas Supreme Court decision that found coverage for an accidental shooting during a hunting trip because the vehicle was being actively used for its intended purpose. Here, the car was a parked location.⁹ Accepting M.O.’s reading, the panel added, would effectively turn auto insurance into general liability coverage for anything happening in or near a car.⁵

Missouri Closed the Arbitration Loophole

The procedural move that produced the original $5.2 million award, arbitration under § 537.065 without the insurer’s knowledge, was already on Missouri’s radar. In 2021 the legislature passed HB 345, which Governor Mike Parson signed on June 29, 2021. The law amended § 537.065 and § 435.415 of the Uniform Arbitration Act so that an arbitration award for personal injury or death does not bind an insurer unless the insurer agreed in writing to the arbitration. An insurer’s refusal to participate cannot be treated as bad faith, and insurers now have an “unconditional right to intervene” within 30 days of notice, with full discovery, motion, and jury trial rights.¹⁰

The amendments took effect August 28, 2021, months after M.O. and Brauner had already arbitrated. The GEICO dispute was not the only reason for the change, but it became one of the most visible examples of the practice the legislature moved to stop.

1
NPR. GEICO Lawsuit STD HPV Insurance Car
2
CBS News. GEICO STD Car $5 Million Award Vacated by Judges
3
FindLaw. M.O. v. GEICO General Insurance Company
4
CNN. GEICO Insurance STD Settlement Missouri
5
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. GEICO General Insurance Company v. M.O., No. 23-1686
6
Claims Journal. Missouri Supreme Court Vacates $5.2M Judgment in GEICO STD Case
7
FindLaw. GEICO General Insurance Company v. M.O., No. 4:22-cv-00082-CV-W-FJG
8
Courthouse News Service. Auto Insurance Injury Coverage Doesn’t Extend to STDs From Car Sex, Eighth Circuit Rules
9
ABA Journal. Despite Policy Punctuation, GEICO Doesn’t Have to Pay for STD Contracted During Car Sex, Eighth Circuit Says
10
Missouri Revisor of Statutes. Section 537.065, RSMo