Admiral Insurance Co. v. Price-Williams

129 So. 3d 991, 2013 WL 2149491, 2013 Ala. LEXIS 49
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedMay 17, 2013
Docket1110993
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 129 So. 3d 991 (Admiral Insurance Co. v. Price-Williams) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Admiral Insurance Co. v. Price-Williams, 129 So. 3d 991, 2013 WL 2149491, 2013 Ala. LEXIS 49 (Ala. 2013).

Opinions

MURDOCK, Justice

(concurring specially).

I concur in the disposition by the main opinion of the issues addressed therein. I write separately to further explain my reasons for doing so and to comment on the context in which the issues addressed in the main opinion arise.

Preliminary Observations

Before explaining my agreement with the disposition by the main opinion of the issues addressed therein, I believe it important to note certain aspects of the context in which these issues are presented in this case. First, the formulation and implementation of a risk-management policy was something the national fraternity, Kappa Sigma, asked of the officers of local chapters in their capacity as agents of the national fraternity. Gabriel Dean and Charles Baber, in their capacities as president and vice president, respectively, of the local chapter, therefore, may have assumed a responsibility to the national fraternity to promulgate such a policy in order to aid the national fraternity in fulfilling the duties imposed by law upon it in relation to visitors to the fraternity house. We do not appear to be presented in this appeal with the question whether [1000]*1000Dean and Baber, in their individual capacities, owed a personal duty to Ryan Price-Williams to promulgate and implement a risk-management policy. Obviously, they owed a personal duty to Price-Williams not to assault and batter him. A duty specifically to create and implement a risk-management policy for his benefit is a different issue, however. See generally Restatement (Third) of Agency: Duty to Principal; Duty to Third Party § 7.02 (2006) (“An agent’s breach of a duty owed to the principal is not an independent basis for the agent’s tort liability to a third party. An agent is subject to tort liability to a third party harmed by the agent’s conduct only when the agent’s conduct breaches a duty that the agent owes to the third party.”); cf. Commercial Union Ins. Co. v. DeShazo 845 So.2d 766, 770 (Ala.2002) (“Furthermore, the ‘inspection and audit’ clauses also indicate that any inspection was solely for the benefit of the defendants, and not, as described in the clauses, made ‘on behalf of or for the benefit of the named insured or others.’ ” (emphasis omitted)).

Second, the Court decides this case today on the basis of an “exclusionary clause” applicable to injuries resulting from an assault and battery. It may be noted as well that the “coverage” language in the policy applies in the first place only to “occurrences” or, as that term is defined, “accidents.” “[A] CGL policy is intended ‘ “to protect an insured from bearing financial responsibility for unexpected and accidental damage to people or property....”’” Town & Country Prop., L.L.C. v. Amerisure Ins. Co., 111 So.3d 699, 707 (Ala.2011) (quoting Essex Ins. Co. v. Holder, 372 Ark. 535, 539, 261 S.W.3d 456, 459 (2007), quoting in turn Nabholz Constr. Corp. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 354 F.Supp.2d 917, 923 (E.D.Ark.2005)). From the standpoint of the insureds, Dean and Baber (in whose shoes Price-Williams must stand in pursuing his direct-action claim against their insurer to recover the damages he has been awarded against them personally), the “damage” to Price-Williams was anything but “unexpected and accidental.” Dean and Baber intentionally, physically attacked and “battered” the victim, Price-Williams.

The result achieved in this case thus is in accord not only with the public policy in Alabama and elsewhere against indemnifying an insured for a loss resulting from his or her own intentional wrongdoing, but also with the fact that an “assault and battery” is an intentional act and therefore cannot properly be considered an “accident” within the meaning of liability policies:

“Insurance liability policies traditionally have been construed as not providing coverage for assaults and batteries committed by the insured, due to the public policy against indemnifying one for his or her own wrongdoing. Moreover, ‘occurrence’- or ‘accident’-based policies often have been interpreted to not encompass claims arising from assaults and batteries.”

Kimberly J. Winbush, Annotation, Validity, Construction and Effect of Assault and Battenj Exclusion in Liability Insurance Policy at Issue, 44 A.L.R.5th 91 (1996).11

Issues Addressed in the Main Opinion

As to the issues addressed in the main opinion, the outcome in this case is governed by two facts. First, the plaintiff has a single, nonseverable claim. As the main opinion notes, Price-Williams’s claim is for [1001]*1001bodily injury that cannot be divided and allocated between Dean’s and Baber’s alleged negligence in not promulgating and implementing a risk-management policy and their subsequent act of intentionally assaulting and battering Price-Williams. Nor can it be divided between those blows struck by Michael Howard and those struck by Dean and Baber during the assault. Price-Williams’s single, nonsevera-ble claim is either covered — in its entirety — by the Admiral insurance policy, or it is not. Second, regardless of whatever other acts or omissions by Dean and Baber or by a third party (i.e., Howard) may have facilitated or contributed to Price-Williams’s bodily injury, it is undeniable that this indivisible bodily injury did arise out of an assault and battery committed by Dean and Baber.

To be applied to these two facts is the following simple policy language: “This insurance does not apply to ‘bodily injury,’ ... [or] ‘personal injury’ ... arising out of any act of assault and/or battery by any insured or additional insured.” Courts in other states that have addressed the issue are essentially unanimous in understanding assault-and-battery exclusions to bar coverage when a loss arises from an assault and battery, regardless of whether there are other acts or “causes of action” that have contributed to that loss.12 Even more specifically, most of these cases stand for the proposition that liability-policy clauses that exclude losses arising from an assault and battery are effective to bar payments for any such loss, even when the only improper conduct of the insured is a purely negligent act or omission that simply made possible or facilitated the subsequent intentional assault or battery. A fortiori, this basic understanding applies in [1002]*1002a case such as this in which it is the insured himself who commits the subsequent intentional assault and battery.

Admiral relies on such cases as Auto-Owners Insurance Co. v. American Central Insurance Co., 739 So.2d 1078 (Ala.1999), Horace Mann Insurance Co. v. D.A.C., 710 So.2d 1274 (Ala.Civ.App.1998), and Gregory v. Western World Insurance Co., 481 So.2d 878 (Ala.1985). Price-Williams argues that these cases are distinguishable because, he says,, they involve separate “claims” arising out of the same “act,” whereas in this case it is possible to distinguish between Price-Williams’s claim alleging an intentional assault and his claims alleging negligence because the claims are based on two separate and distinct acts. This argument misunderstands the rationale of Auto-Owners.

First, it appears that there were in fact two different acts by the insured in Auto-Owners. As the trial court in Auto-Owners

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Bluebook (online)
129 So. 3d 991, 2013 WL 2149491, 2013 Ala. LEXIS 49, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/admiral-insurance-co-v-price-williams-ala-2013.