Sometimes benefits and ERISA gets a little dry, and I have to turn to other areas of the law for humor. Thanks to Ernie the Attorney for the pointer to this case: Mayor v. Wedding. According to the court, the burning issue in the case was as follows:

In this case we are called on to determine whether a cow is an uninsured motor vehicle under appellants’ insurance policy. We hold that it is not. On the night of September 5, 2001, appellants William R. Mayor, Jr., and Wendy M. Mayor were traveling on Interstate 76 west near milepost 41 when their vehicle struck a cow owned by Thomas Wedding. Apparently several of Mr. Wedding’s cows had wandered onto the highway. . .

There appears to be no dispute that there was a collision; the cow was not insured at the time of the collision; and that the cow caused the collision. The dispute in this case is whether the cow was a “land motor vehicle” as defined in the policy. While a cow is designed for operation on land, we do not believe a cow is a “motor vehicle.” The policy at issue does not separately define “motor vehicle;” therefore we must look to the common, ordinary meaning of this term. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “motor vehicle” as, “a self-propelled, wheeled conveyance that does not run on rails.” Id. at 817, 374 N.E.2d 146. A cow is self-propelled, does not run on rails, and could be used as a conveyance; however, there is no indication in the record that this particular cow had wheels. Therefore, it was not a motor vehicle and thus was not a “land motor vehicle” as defined in the policy. The trial court properly found that appellants were not entitled to uninsured motorist coverage. See State Auto. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Cleveland Carriage Co. (1984), 98 Ohio App.3d 361, 648 N.E.2d 590 (finding that a horse was not a motor vehicle for purposes of uninsured motorist coverage;) Wilbur v. Allstate Ins. Co. (Nov. 29, 1991), 11th Dist. No. 90-G-1600, 1991 WL 252851 (finding that a horse and buggy was not a motor vehicle for purposes of uninsured motorist coverage.) To hold otherwise would be a manifestly absurd result. King, supra at 213, 519 N.E.2d 1380.

Please note that the reasoning in the case has nothing to do with the fact that a cow is a living creature and doesn’t have a motor, but that a cow doesn’t have wheels. Justice Bedsworth in an article here pokes fun at the opinion for doing so. He writes:

So how, you might ask, did the courts in Ohio come to the conclusion that neither a horse nor a cow is a MOTOR vehicle? How, you might wonder, did they sift through all the legal chaff to find the kernel of logic that separates warm-blooded barnyard animals from lifeless, steel MOTOR vehicles.

Go ahead, ask. Wonder.

Was it by taking judicial notice of the conspicuous absence of MOTORS in cows and horses? No, no. That would be way too easy. Nobody remembers opinions like that. No one writes odes to such prosaic analysis. . .