State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Wicka

• Decision Date: 30 August 1991
• Docket Number: No. C4-90-312,C4-90-312
• Citation: 474 N.W.2d 324
• Parties: STATE FARM FIRE & CASUALTY CO., Petitioner/Appellant, v. James C. WICKA, Special Administrator for the Estate of Stephen Bradley Kintop, Defendant, and Paul R. Peterson, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 324

474 N.W.2d 324

STATE FARM FIRE & CASUALTY CO., Petitioner/Appellant, v. James C. WICKA, Special Administrator for the Estate of Stephen Bradley Kintop, Defendant and Paul R. Peterson, Respondent.

No. C4-90-312.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Aug. 30, 1991.

Syllabus by the Court

For the purposes of applying an intentional act exclusion contained in a homeowner's insurance policy, an insured's acts are deemed unintentional where, because of mental illness or defect, the insured does not know the nature or wrongfulness of an The trial court abused its discretion in ruling an expert's opinion lacked foundation where expert's opinion was based on undisputed facts in evidence presented in hypothetical question.

act, or where, because of mental illness or defect, the insured is deprived of the ability to control his conduct regardless of any understanding of the nature of the act or its wrongfulness.

William M. Hart, Kenneth W. Dodge, Meagher & Geer, Minneapolis, for petitioner/appellant.

W. Scott Herzog, Peter A. Koller, Moss & Barnett, Minneapolis, for respondent.

Considered and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

GARDEBRING, Justice.

This case raises two issues, the first legal and the second evidentiary, involving whether an intentional act exclusion of a homeowner's liability policy applies to the conduct of an insured who, because of mental illness, may lack the capacity to form the intent to injure. In light of public policy favoring coverage where the injury threatens the general public, we construe the policy language as providing coverage where, because of mental illness, the insured's act is the product of a failure of the insured's volitional or cognitive capacities.

I.

On the early morning of December 31, 1982, Stephen B. Kintop stormed into the living room of his ex-girlfriend, Colleen Hughes, smashing through the front door with a pistol in his hand. Standing in Hughes' living room was Paul R. Peterson, an acquaintance of Kintop's who was then dating Hughes. Upon seeing the gun brandished by Kintop, Peterson fled through the back door into the street outside. Kintop pursued. Firing as he chased the fleeing Peterson, Kintop shot Peterson several times, wounding him in the hip and head. Collapsing but still conscious, Peterson heard Kintop whimper as he reloaded and approached. Kintop then killed himself.

Incidents of erratic, abusive, and violent behavior characterized the relationship between Kintop and Hughes. In April of 1981, Kintop threatened to kill himself should Hughes end their relationship, showing her a gun as he uttered the threat. A month later, while driving with Hughes, Kintop pulled to the side of the road and punched Hughes in the face several times. Again, while driving with Hughes in June of 1981, Kintop pulled Hughes' head into his lap and accelerated, claiming he was going to kill them both. When Hughes finally ended the relationship in November of 1982, Kintop tried to rape Hughes and then shoved his head through her bedroom wall. On December 28, 1982, just days before his own death, Kintop again assaulted Hughes. While spending the night in her home as an invited guest, Kintop struck Hughes several times, pulled out her hair, spoke in weird language, and licked her head. The next morning, however, Kintop acted as though nothing unusual had happened.

Although Hughes had begun dating Peterson in November of 1982, Kintop continued seeing Hughes socially, and when Kintop arrived at the Hughes home around 3:00 a.m. on December 31, 1982, Hughes allowed him inside. Once inside, the two conversed until Hughes received a telephone call from Peterson. Realizing that Peterson was on the phone with Hughes, Kintop attacked Hughes, tearing off her bathrobe as he thrust his finger down her throat to stifle her cries. Kintop then lifted Hughes over his head, threw her to the floor, and fled. A short time later, Kintop called to tell Hughes that she would never see him again. Peterson later arrived at the Hughes home and chatted with one of Hughes' roommates, until Kintop, with gun in hand, burst through the door into the living room.

Despite severe injuries caused by multiple gunshot wounds, Peterson survived to sue Kintop's estate for damages. Defense of the suit was tendered to State Farm Fire & Casualty Company (State Farm), the homeowner's carrier for Kintop's parents. ¹ The tort claim was settled under a Miller-Shugart agreement, in which Kintop's estate assigned to Peterson its rights against State Farm under the policy. State Farm commenced the present declaratory judgment action, disputing coverage based on the policy's "intentional act" exclusion, which provides:

1. Coverage L--Personal Liability and Coverage M--Medical Payments to Others do not apply to:

(a) bodily injury or property damage which is expected or intended by the insured; * * *

After the trial court denied State Farm's initial motion for summary judgment in August of 1986, the case went to trial before a jury in September of 1988, the sole issue being whether Kintop, at the time of the shooting, lacked the mental capacity to intend to injure Peterson. The jury found in Peterson's favor, but the trial court later ordered a new trial, reasoning that it had violated Minn.R.Civ.P. 49.01(a) by disclosing to the jury how its special verdict would affect the outcome of the case. When the case was assigned to another judge in July of 1989, State Farm again moved for summary judgment.

Responding to that motion, Peterson submitted the trial testimony of Dr. William Brauer, the psychiatrist who testified at the jury trial. Dr. Brauer opined that Kintop had, at the time of the shooting, a "deranged mental intellect which did deprive him of the capacity to govern his conduct in accordance with reason." Counsel for Peterson elicited Dr. Brauer's opinion through a hypothetical question that detailed the facts of the shooting and Kintop's bizarre behavior in the days preceding the shooting. The second trial court rejected Dr. Brauer's testimony as lacking foundation because Dr. Brauer had never personally examined Kintop and had not complied with American Psychiatric Association standards, which the trial court said prohibited testimony regarding mental capacity of another without direct knowledge of the individual. The second trial court reasoned that intent could be inferred based on Kintop's actions and his voluntary intoxication. It stated:

The actions of Mr. Kintop were * * * bizarre and certainly qualify as wanton and malicious. He came to his friends [sic] house, pulled a gun, chased the victim several blocks and shot him several times. A trier of fact could not conclude other than that there was an intent to injure the victim.

Because [Kintop] committed an act, an element of which is intent, and because [Kintop] was voluntarily intoxicated at the time of the commission of the act, his act is deemed to have been intentional regardless of his mental capacity to form intent. The assault is therefore within the intentional acts exclusion of the insurance policy.

The issue of [Kintop]'s alleged mental capacity under these facts should not, as a matter of law, have been given to the trier of fact.

The second trial court granted summary judgment for State Farm, and Peterson appealed both that ruling and the previous order for new trial.

On appeal, the court of appeals panel affirmed the order for new trial, but reversed the grant of summary judgment. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Wicka, 461 N.W.2d 236, 242 (Minn.App.1990), rev. granted (Minn. Dec. 14, 1990). Embracing the rule adopted by the majority of states, the court of appeals panel held that an intentional act exclusion does not apply to "injuries resulting from acts committed at a time when, because of mental illness, the insured is unable to control his or her conduct in accordance with reason." Id. at 240. The court of appeals then reviewed the exclusion of Dr. Brauer's testimony, finding that the second trial court abused its discretion in rejecting that testimony based on Dr. Brauer's lack of a personal acquaintance with Kintop. Id. at 241. Holding that Dr. Brauer's testimony was admissible evidence, the court of appeals ruled that a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether Kintop, at the time of the shooting, was deprived of the ability to control his conduct in accordance with reason. Id. at 241. This court granted further review on the reversal of summary judgment. ²

II.

The law and society have always approached a person's claimed mental illness with a degree of skepticism and disbelief. ³ This societal mistrust stems, in part, from the fear that mental illness is feigned with ease and frequency. See United States v. Trapnell, 495 F.2d 22, 24 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 851, 95 S.Ct. 93, 42 L.Ed.2d 82 (1974). Stronger skepticism arises when a putatively mentally ill person has a "normal appearance" or "doesn't look sick." Perlin, Psychodynamics and the Insanity Defense: "Ordinary Common Sense" and Heuristic Reasoning, 69 Neb.L.Rev. 3, 23 (1990). Despite these inherent suspicions, the concept that the mentally ill person should be relieved from responsibility for certain acts has existed for at least the past millennium. See Robitscher & Haynes, In Defense of the Insanity Defense, 31 Emory L.J. 9, 10 (1982). Within the area of insurance law, an extensive debate has occurred as to whether and when an insured's mental illness prevents the application of an intentional act exclusion to the acts of an insured. Two lines of authority have emerged, which agree that mental illness may affect the application of an intentional act exclusion, but disagree as to when that occurs.

The first line of cases holds, as a matter of law, that the intentional act exclusion does not apply if the injury results from an insane act. ⁴ Beyond this general premise, however, the cases diverge and articulate varying standards for judging the...