A recent decision from the Third Circuit addresses a rather timely issue during this holiday season, that is, does inebriation render an intentional act accidental? State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. The Estate of Thomas W. Mehlman, 2009 WL 4827027 (3rd Cir. Dec. 16, 2009), holds that for purposes of a liability insurance policy, a person’s intentional act is not rendered accidental simply because one commits the act while inebriated.
State Farm issued two liability insurance policies to Mehlman, a Homeowner’s Policy and an Umbrella Policy. The insuring agreement of the Homeowner’s Policy provided coverage “if a claim is made or a suit is brought against an insured for damages because of bodily injury . . . cost by an…
The Michigan Court of Appeals recently ruled that just because a substance is considered a pesticide, does not mean it will always be an excluded “pollutant” under a commercial general liability policy. The court took into consideration the policyholder’s reasonable expectations and the insurer’s knowledge of the insured’s line of business.
In Hastings Mut. Ins. Co. v. Safety King Inc., 2009 Mich. App. LEXIS 2448 (Mich. Ct. App. Nov. 24, 2009), the appellate court overturned the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to the insurance company. Hastings had issued a policy to Safety King, a company in the air duct cleaning business. Safety King was sued by a homeowner for damages alleged from use of a sanitizing agent as part of the…
In Payless ShoeSource, Inc. v. The Travelers Companies, Inc., 585 F. 3d 1366 (10th Cir. 2009), the Tenth Circuit held that Travelers did not have a duty to defend and indemnify Payless against a California state court class action alleging violations of the California Labor Code (“CLC”). Though acknowledging that an exclusion in the Travelers’ Employment Practices Liability Policy was grammatically imprecise, the court concluded that the “punctuation peccadillo notwithstanding, the meaning of the parties’ contract is unambiguous.” 585 F. 3d at 1368. And in the Court’s view, the exclusion unmistakably excluded coverage for the claims in the California state court class action.
The dispute centered on Exclusion A.3 of the policy:
The Insured should not be liable for Loss on account…
