Allstate Must Defend Husband of Insured after Shooting of his Wife's Lover
July 03, 2017
This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that if an intentional shooting is unforeseeable from the standpoint of the insured, the personal injury that results from that shooting should be covered under their homeowners policy. The case is Allstate Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Roberts, No. 16-13063, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 10933 (11th Cir. June 21, 2017).
The insurance company, Allstate Property and Casualty Insurance Company, issued a homeowners policy to provide coverage for her single family home in Georgia. The policy provided coverage for an “occurrence” which it defined as “an accident” causing bodily injury. The insured, Kim Roberts, was married to Bobby Roberts at the time of the incident. Bobby, then Kim's husband (and now her ex-husband) entered the home in the middle of the day, suspicious that his wife was having an affair. When he arrived at the home he found Kim and Sinatra Miller sitting in the kitchen. Bobby confronted Kim and her invited guest, Miller. As Bobby walked into a bedroom, Sinatra fled into the front yard. Bobby followed Miller out the front door and shot him multiple times with a hand gun. Miller and his wife filed suit against Kim and Bobby on claims of aggravated assault, premises liability, and loss of consortium.
Allstate claimed that Bobby's shooting was not a covered “occurrence” because it was intentional, not an “accident.” Allstate also asserted that Bobby was an unnamed insured under the policy, which excludes coverage for damages caused by the intentional or criminal acts of any insured person. The district court agreed with Allstate on the first claim and did not consider the second.
The Millers argued that the accident involved Bobby's unexpected arrival at Kim's house and that “because Bobby's appearance was unforeseen by Kim and was not within Kim's foresight, expectation, or design, it can and should be considered an “accident” that set into motion the chain of events from which the underlying lawsuit arises.”
Now the question facing the court is whether Bobby's undisputedly intentional act nevertheless qualifies as an “accident' under Kim's homeowners' insurance policy. That question depends on whether an “accident” is determined from the perspective of the actor or from the perspective of the insured. Under Georgia insurance law, the question of whether an event is an “accident” must be asked from the viewpoint of the insured”.
The appellate court ultimately concluded that by not asking the “question of whether an event took place without one's foresight, expectation or design . . . from the viewpoint of the insured”, the district court erred and did not follow the appropriate legal standard.
Editor's Note: Although Allstate contended that Bobby qualified as an “insured” under the Policy, since the district court did not reach that question the Appellate Court assumed, for the purposes of their opinion, that Bobby was not an insured under the Policy. Normally a homeowners policy would extend to the husband, barring any unusual circumstances. In this case, that issue has not even been addressed at this point. Under Georgia law, an accident must be foreseeable from the viewpoint of the insured, based on a decision in case from 2010, Rucker v. Columbia Nat'l Ins. Co., 307 Ga. App. 444, 705 S.E. 2d 270 (Ga. Ct. App. 2010). As a result, further proceedings are necessary to decide if Allstate will have to provide coverage for Bobby's intentional action of shooting his wife's lover.