Illinois National Insurance Co. v. Wyndham Worldwide Operations, Inc.

Jet Aviation, contracted to maintain Wyndham's (plaintiff) aircraft, obtained insurance from Illinois National (defendant) that initially covered any Named Insured, including Wyndham, only when Jet Aviation itself operated the aircraft, but Jet Aviation later persuaded Illinois National to reword the policy to cover any aircraft operated by a Named Insured, a change both intended only to clarify coverage for Jet Aviation clients rather than to extend coverage to entirely unaffiliated aircraft use. When a Wyndham employee rented and crashed an aircraft with no Jet Aviation involvement, killing five people, Illinois National sued for a declaratory judgment that the policy did not cover the crash, arguing the broadened wording was a mutual mistake it wanted reformed; the trial court held that because Wyndham never participated in the policy negotiations, there could be no mutual mistake between Wyndham and Illinois National, so the policy could not be rewritten to eliminate Wyndham's coverage.