{"id":894416,"date":"2018-06-21T10:40:43","date_gmt":"2018-06-21T16:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=894416"},"modified":"2018-06-21T10:40:43","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T16:40:43","slug":"california-supreme-court-rights-occurrence-ship-unintended-harm-resulting-intentional-conduct-triggers-coverage-liability-insurance-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/california-supreme-court-rights-occurrence-ship-unintended-harm-resulting-intentional-conduct-triggers-coverage-liability-insurance-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"California Supreme Court Rights the &#8220;Occurrence&#8221; Ship: Unintended Harm Resulting from Intentional Conduct Triggers Coverage Under Liability Insurance Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Scott S. Thomas | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paynefears.com\/insights\/california-supreme-court-rights-occurrence-ship-unintended-harm-resulting-intentional\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Payne &amp; Fears<\/a> | June 6, 2018<\/p>\n<p><strong>SUMMARY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a ruling that bodes well for policyholders, the California Supreme Court provides much-needed clarity on the question of when a so-called &#8220;intentional act&#8221; may give rise to insurance coverage under a liability insurance policy. In\u00a0<em>Liberty Surplus Insurance Corp. v. Ledesma &amp; Meyer Construction Co.<\/em>, Case No. S23765 (Cal. June 4, 2018), the Court holds that an employer&#8217;s potential liability for negligent hiring, after its employee allegedly abused a 13-year old student, is the result of an &#8220;occurrence&#8221; and is thus covered under the employer&#8217;s liability insurance policy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>COURT OPINION<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The court&#8217;s opinion dispels the misguided notion that an intentional act resulting in unintended harm is never an &#8220;occurrence&#8221; and can never trigger coverage. What matters, according to the Court, is that, from the insured&#8217;s point of view, the consequences of its conduct are &#8220;unexpected, unforeseen, or undesigned&#8221; &#8211; even if the conduct is intentional. And in a concurring opinion, Justice Liu rightfully questions the legitimacy of the notion that intentional conduct cannot trigger coverage, even when it produces an unintended result, unless, in the words of a 1989 appellate court decision, some &#8220;additional, unexpected, independent, and unforeseen happening occurs that produces the damage.&#8221; As Justice Liu explains, this intervening &#8220;happening&#8221; may be something as simple as the insured&#8217;s mistaken belief that he was acting in self-defense, or that the victim had consented to the insured&#8217;s conduct. This much-needed clarification restores vitality to the fundamental principle that injuries are &#8220;accidental&#8221; when they are &#8220;unexpected, unforeseen, or undesigned,&#8221; regardless of their cause.<\/p>\n<p><strong>KEY TAKEAWAYS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This ruling will apply in many contexts: For example, contractors who &#8220;intentionally&#8221; build things; competitors who &#8220;intentionally&#8221; disparage another&#8217;s product; employers who &#8220;intentionally&#8221; hire employees who do bad things. The Court&#8217;s decision restores the law&#8217;s fidelity to fundamental principles enunciated in the seminal California &#8220;occurrence&#8221; case:\u00a0<em>Gray v. Zurich<\/em>, 65 Cal. 2d 263 (1966). And it ought to dampen insurers&#8217; enthusiasm for denying claims on the spurious ground that the insured&#8217;s conduct &#8211; even though it resulted in bodily injury or property damage that the insured did not expect or intend to cause &#8211; was &#8220;intentional.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scott S. Thomas | Payne &amp; Fears | June 6, 2018 SUMMARY In a ruling that bodes well for policyholders, the California Supreme Court provides much-needed clarity on the question of when a so-called &#8220;intentional act&#8221; may give rise to insurance coverage under a liability insurance policy. In\u00a0Liberty Surplus Insurance Corp. v. Ledesma &amp; Meyer&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/california-supreme-court-rights-occurrence-ship-unintended-harm-resulting-intentional-conduct-triggers-coverage-liability-insurance-policy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">California Supreme Court Rights the &#8220;Occurrence&#8221; Ship: Unintended Harm Resulting from Intentional Conduct Triggers Coverage Under Liability Insurance Policy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9914],"tags":[309,9895,88,23,10501],"class_list":["post-894416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance-coverage","tag-occurrence","tag-advise-consult","tag-california","tag-insurance-coverage","tag-intentional-act","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>California Supreme Court Rights the &quot;Occurrence&quot; 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