Ruff v. Graziano

In Ruff v. Graziano, 220 Wis. 2d 513, 583 N.W.2d 185 (Ct. App. 1998), the only Wisconsin case that considers the non-business pursuits exception in a childcare context, the court held that the business exclusion provision precluded coverage for a daycare provider who took the children to the beach where one drowned. The court applied the definition of "business pursuits" from Bertler v. Employers Insurance, 86 Wis. 2d 13, 21-22, 271 N.W.2d 603 (1978), and concluded that because the daycare provider was customarily engaged in that occupation and earned her living from it, taking the children to the beach constituted a business pursuit. The non-business pursuits exception did not apply because the trip to the beach had to be considered in the context of the daycare business.