美国保险法上的兰波-韦斯顿规则述评

美国法院在处理保险竞合条款适用冲突时做法并不一致。大多数州的法院从合同解释出发,探求各保险人的真意,以此确定各保险人的赔偿顺序和方式。而少数州的法院却另辟蹊径,以兰波-韦斯顿规则为代表,强调效率优先,兼顾公正。该规则认为如保险竞合条款之间互相排斥,则各保险竞合条款均不发生效力,各保险人应以自己承保的保险金额占所有保险人承保的保险金额总额的比例分摊损失。该规则已被一些法院所采纳并有扩张趋势。

Review on the Rambo-Weston Rule in the Insurance Law of the United States

When dealing with the application conflicts of the superposition clauses of insurance, the corresponding measures taken by the courts of the United States are often inconsistent. Most of the courts at state level strive to ex- plore the true intentions of the insurers from the point of view of contract interpretations in order to determine the or- der and manner of the compensation of the insurers,while a small number of courts at state level open a new path represented by the Rambo-Weston rule, emphasizing the priority of the efficiency with due consideration to fairness. The rule indicates that, if the superposition clauses of insurance are mutually exclusive, no insurance provision will be effective, and each insurer shall be responsible for the relevant loss based on the proportion accounted by the amount insured by it in the total amount insured by all insurers. The rule has been adopted by a number of courts and has the tendency to be applied expansively.