A New Jersey federal court recently reformed a fleet insurance
policy to exclude coverage for non-owned aircraft based upon the
doctrine of mutual mistake.
Wyndham contracted with Jet Aviation International, Inc. (Jet)
for operation and management of Wyndham-owned aircraft. The
agreement required Jet to obtain insurance for Wyndham's
aircraft, which Jet did from 2004 to 2007, pursuant to a policy
that excluded coverage for "any Non-Owned Aircraft unless such
Non-Owned Aircraft is operated by or used at the direc-tion of
[Jet]." In 2008, however, the language of that exclusion was
revised by substituting "Named Insured" for Jet. The
purpose of that revision was to extend coverage to several of
Jet's affiliates, who were named insureds who might arrange for
the use of non-owned aircraft. The language of the 2004 to 2007
policies would have excluded cover-age for the activities of those
Jet affiliates, which was not the parties' intent, and was the
impetus behind the
