Hrynkiw v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 09 May 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 5D02-1942.,5D02-1942. |
| Citation | 844 So.2d 739 |
| Parties | Jeffrey HRYNKIW, Appellant, v. ALLSTATE FLORIDIAN INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Karla T. Torpy of Graham, Moletteire & Torpy, P.A., Melbourne, for Appellant.
Jessica M. Farrelly and David B. Shelton of Rumberger, Kirk & Caldwell, Orlando, for Appellee.
Jeffrey Hrynkiw appeals the final judgment rendered in the declaratory judgment action filed by Allstate Floridian Insurance Company to resolve a coverage dispute concerning a homeowners insurance policy Allstate issued to Robert and Mary Jane Thompson. Pursuant to Allstate's motion for judgment on the pleadings, the trial court entered the judgment under review finding that Allstate has no duty to defend or indemnify the Thompsons or their minor son, Lon, in the underlying personal injury suit brought against them by Hrynkiw. We affirm.
We will discuss, in the following order, the factual allegations and procedural background, the pertinent clauses in the policy and our legal analysis.
A motion for judgment on the pleadings must be decided only on the pleadings without the aid of outside matters. See Cartan Tours, Inc. v. ESA Servs., Inc., 833 So.2d 873, 875 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003)
(citation omitted). Accordingly, the allegations in the pleadings filed in the personal injury action by Hrynkiw against the Thompsons formed the nucleus of the trial court's decision to declare that no coverage exists under the insurance policy issued to the Thompsons. What follows is a compendium of those allegations and an explanation of the procedural background of the instant case.
Hrynkiw alleges in his complaint that Lon willfully and intentionally committed a battery on Hrynkiw when he obtained possession of a pistol belonging to his parents, Robert and Mary Jane Thompson, pointed the pistol at Hrynkiw's head and fired at close range. The bullet pierced Hrynkiw's skull near the bridge of his nose and exited behind his right ear. The complaint further alleges that Lon "intended to cause harmful or offensive contact ... in that he fired the pistol at the victim's head and knew that such an act was substantially certain to result in harm or death."
In separate counts of the complaint, Hrynkiw also alleges that he is entitled to recover from Robert and Mary Jane Thompson based on their negligence in failing to safely store the pistol in their home and in failing to exercise parental control over Lon. It was generally alleged that Robert and Mary Jane knew that Lon was on probation with the State of Florida for violent behavior committed against another victim, that Lon had dangerous propensities and that Lon was unfit to use a firearm.
When the Thompsons looked to Allstate to provide them with coverage under their policy and a defense to the suit Hrynkiw filed against them, Allstate reserved its right to deny coverage, provided a defense pursuant to that reservation of rights and filed the instant declaratory judgment action naming the Thompsons and Hrynkiw as defendants.1 The Thompsons did not answer the suit. Allstate moved for judgment on the pleadings, and the trial court granted Allstate's motion finding that, as a matter of law, coverage was excluded for the injuries suffered by Hrynkiw based on two clauses contained within the policy: the intentional or criminal act exclusion clause and the joint obligations clause.
Exclusion clauses, like the intentional or criminal act exclusion clause contained in the policy issued to the Thompsons, are generally considered contrary to the fundamental protective purposes of insurance. Thus, the courts give a strict interpretation to exclusion clauses, as opposed to the liberal interpretation accorded coverage provisions.2 When determining the meaning and scope of an exclusion clause or other provisions of an insurance policy, legal niceties, technical terms, and phraseology extracted from the vernacular of the insurance industry should never transcend the common understanding of the ordinary person. Therefore, the proper inquiry is not whether a legal scholar can, with learned deliberation, comprehend the meaning of an insurance policy provision, but instead, whether it is understandable to a layperson.3 Hence, we will apply everyday meaning to the language of the instant policy and not strain for a contrary interpretation.4 With these principles in mind, we turn to the provisions of the clauses at issue in the instant case.
The pertinent part of the intentional or criminal act exclusion clause in the Thompsons' policy provides that it does "not cover any bodily injury or property damage intended by, or which may reasonably be expected to result from the intentional or criminal acts or omissions of, any insured person."5 The everyday meaning of this clause is that the policy does not insure against damages that an insured intentionally inflicts or that are reasonably expected to result from an insured's intentional or criminal acts. The willingness of the courts to uphold intentional or criminal act exclusion clauses is premised on the jurisprudential maxim that no person should be allowed to profit from his or her own wrong. Lawyers and laymen alike generally understand that the public policy against insuring for losses resulting from intentional or criminal acts is usually justified by the assumption that such acts would be encouraged, or at least not dissuaded, if insurance were available to shift the financial burden of the loss from the wrongdoer to the insurer. The intentional or criminal act exclusion in the Thompsons' policy is sustainable without further comment.
The joint obligations clause of the Thompsons' policy provides in pertinent part:
The terms of this policy impose joint obligations on persons defined as an insured person. This means that the responsibilities, acts and failures to act of a person defined as an insured person will be binding upon another person defined as an insured person.
The policy defines "insured person" as "you and, if a resident of your household: a) any relative; and b) any dependent person in your care." The policy further defines "you" and "your" as "the person named on the Policy Declarations as the insured and that person's resident spouse."
This clause "forges the various parties insured by a policy into a joint and inseparable legal entity" so that "when the conduct of one insured defeats liability protection for a given loss, the policy deprives all other insureds of liability protection for that loss, even if the loss was also proximately caused by one of those parties." Allstate Ins. Co. v. Raynor, 143 Wash.2d 469, 21 P.3d 707, 713 (2001) (citation omitted). We believe that the joint obligations clause is unambiguous and understandable to the ordinary person. Thus, the clause is enforceable.
We proceed next to determine whether coverage is excluded for the alleged negligent acts of the parents based on the intentional or criminal act exclusion clause and the joint obligations clause. Parenthetically, we note that Hrynkiw concedes that the intentional or criminal act exclusion clause does exempt coverage for the count alleging a cause of action based on Lon's act of shooting him.
Allstate contends that coverage is exempted for the negligent acts of Lon's parents because the intentional or criminal act exclusion clause and the provisions of the joint obligations clause impose joint liability on the parents for the intentional or criminal acts of Lon. Because the Florida courts have not had occasion to consider the appropriate application of the joint obligations clause to the intentional or criminal act exclusion clause, we will begin with an analysis of decisions from other jurisdictions that have considered and applied them.
Although labeling a joint obligations clause identical to the clause at issue in the instant case as "more than a little mysterious," the court in Allstate Insurance Co. v. Steele, 74 F.3d 878 (8th Cir.1996), observed that such clauses have nevertheless been consistently construed to mean that an insured's intentional act bars a claim against another insured for negligent supervision. Id. at 881 Allstate Ins. Co. v. Pond Bar, 1995 WL 568399 ; see J.C. v. N.B., 335 N.J.Super. 503, 762 A.2d 1062 (App.Div. 2000)
; Raynor. The rationale of these decisions is that the underlying cause of both the intentional and negligent claims is the intentional act of the wrongdoer. In essence, regardless whether the immediate intentional act inflicts the injury or the antecedent negligence sets in motion the events that lead to that injury, it is the underlying cause of the injury—the intentional act for which all of the insureds are equally responsible—that determines coverage. Hence, the injured person should not be allowed to circumvent the intentional act exclusion clause by filing a claim for negligence based on the same underlying intentional act that actually caused the injury. This is especially true when the policy contains a joint obligations clause that makes all of the insureds responsible for the acts of another.
We agree with this rationale because it is logical, reasonable and comports with Florida law. In Landis v. Allstate Ins. Co., 546 So.2d 1051 (Fla.1989), the insureds committed acts of sexual abuse against children placed in their daycare center and were convicted of criminal charges stemming from that wrongful conduct. The parents brought suit against the insureds for gross negligence in the insured's care and supervision of the children and for intentional harm. Allstate, which had issued a...
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