Number of Accidents
October 19, 2015
The insurer appeals from a summary judgment granted to claimants. The question on appeal is whether the district court erred in determining that a series of events constituted three separate accidents. This case is National Liability & Fire Insurance Company v. Itzkowitz, 2015 WL 5332109.
The relevant series of events began when a dump box attached to a dump truck struck and damaged an overpass owned by the thruway authority. After hitting the overpass, the dump box separated from the truck and landed in the highway. Between thirty seconds and five minutes later, the vehicle occupied by Itzkowitz struck the box. At some point between a few seconds and twenty minutes later, another vehicle occupied by other individuals struck the same dump box. The insurer, National Liability & Fire argued that this series of events constituted one accident under the terms of the policy. The claimants countered that three accidents occurred.
The United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, noted that under New York law, the unfortunate event test should be applied in this instance to determine how occurrences are categorized for insurance coverage purposes. This test involves a two-part inquiry. First, the operative identity giving rise to liability has to be identified. Second, the court has to consider whether there is a close temporal and spatial relationship between the incidents giving rise to injury or loss, and whether the incidents can be viewed as part of the same causal continuum without intervening agents or factors.
The court said that the insurer argued that the policy language providing that all BI and PD resulting from continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same conditions will be considered as resulting from one accident means the incidents here involved one accident. The Circuit Court disagreed.
The court noted that several New York Court of Appeals decisions showed that it would be arbitrary to draw a hard line at any particular number of seconds or minutes that must elapse before two incidents are distinct accidents. Instead, the court determined that it should consider whether the relative timing of the various incidents played a role in causing any of the incidents. Here, no evidence in the record supports a reasonable inference that the relative timing of any of the incidents played a role in causing the events to unfold as they did. In sum, the court ruled, although the incidents occurred close in time, nothing suggests that the narrow timespan between each incident played a role in causing any of the other incidents.
As for the spatial proximity of the events, the court found that the first and second incidents are distinct because they occurred in different locations. The second and third incidents are spatially proximate. However, the spatial proximity of the second and third incidents is not necessarily outcome-determinative. The unfortunate event test does not dictate that separate incidents are part of the same accident if they meet any one of three criteria—spatial proximity, temporal proximity, or occurrence in a causal continuum. Rather, the test reflects a common sense balancing of the three elements.
The court turned to consideration of the third element: whether the incidents are part of the same causal continuum. The three incidents in this case share a common origin: the initial negligence that caused the dump truck's collision with the overpass. And to be part of the same accident, the operative incidents must be part of the same causal chain. Once an incident occurs and that incident does not then cause further injury, the causal chain is broken. Here, the first incident involved the dump box striking the overpass, separating from the dump truck, and landing in the road. That incident was not responsible for the second and third incidents. When the Itzkowitz vehicle collided with the dump box, a second causal chain started, and when the other vehicle struck the dump box, this collision was unrelated to the preceding collision involving the Itzkowitz vehicle.
Therefore, the second and third incidents were not part of the same unbroken continuum. That means there were three separate incidents. The ruling of the district court was affirmed.
Editor's Note: The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals uses the New York unfortunate event test to find that there were three distinct accidents involved in this claim.