A federal district court in Pennsylvania has ruled that a lawsuit asserting a claim of assault and battery against an insured did not trigger an insurance company's duty to defend because there was no “occurrence.” The district court also decided that it would not consider extrinsic evidence to demonstrate that the insured had acted in self-defense.
The Case
Jonathan Cox sued Gary Jackson, alleging that Mr. Jackson had assaulted him while they were at a pub.
State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, which had issued a homeowner's insurance policy to Mr. Jackson and his wife, Kathleen Jackson, asked the Pennsylvania district court to declare that it had no duty to defend Mr. Jackson against the claims brought against him by Mr. Cox because there was no “occurrence” in that Mr. Jackson's actions had not been an “accident.”
State Farm moved for summary judgment.
The District Court's Decision
The district court granted State Farm's motion.
In its decision, the district court explained that the complaint against Mr. Jackson alleged “only an assault and battery claim against Mr. Jackson” for “severely assault[ing] and injur[ing] an innocent business guest.” The district court observed that there were “no allegations of negligence against Mr. Jackson” – in fact, Mr. Jackson had been convicted of assault as a result of the incident – and it ruled that the four corners of the complaint did not describe any type of “accident” involving Mr. Jackson.
Accordingly, the district court determined, there was no “occurrence” and, thus, no duty to defend on State Farm's part.
The district court rejected Mr. Jackson's efforts to rely on extrinsic evidence to find that State Farm had a duty to defend him. In particular, Mr. Jackson asked the district court to consider the Jacksons' depositions in which they asserted that Mr. Jackson had acted in self-defense after Mr. Cox struck him first and, therefore, that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Mr. Jackson “harbored the malicious intent” to injure Mr. Cox.
The district court explained that Mr. Jackson's argument was “mistakenly premised” on the assumption that State Farm's refusal to defend was based on an exclusion from coverage for personal liability for bodily injury that was the result of willful and malicious acts of the insured. As the district court pointed out, State Farm was not relying on an exclusion within the policy, but rather on the fact that the allegations in Mr. Cox's complaint did not set forth any “occurrence” that initially triggered its duty to defend. Given that State Farm was not relying on an exclusion, the district court said that it could rely only on the allegations in the complaint against Mr. Jackson and that it could not consider the extrinsic evidence put forth by Mr. Jackson.
Accordingly, the district court concluded that State Farm had no duty to defend or indemnify Mr. Jackson in connection with Mr. Cox's action.
The case is State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Jackson, No. 18-102 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 22, 2018). Attorneys involved include: For STATE FARM FIRE AND CASUALTY COMPANY, Plaintiff: BRADLEY J. MORTENSEN, LEAD ATTORNEY, VICTORIA ELIZABETH ALLEN, KENNEDYS CMK LLP, PHILADELPHIA, PA; ELIZABETH A. SUTTON, Kennedys CMK LLP, PHILA, PA. For GARY JACKSON, KATHLEEN JACKSON, Defendants: VINCENT M. VANGROSSI, VANGROSSI AND RECCHUITI, NORRISTOWN, PA.
Steven A. Meyerowitz
Steven A. Meyerowitz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a law firm marketing communications consulting company. He may be contacted at [email protected].