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Travelers Indemnity Co. v. PCR Incorporated12/9/2004
as not intended to preclude) an injured employee from suing his employer in tort if his injuries were caused by employer conduct that the employer should have known was substantially certain to cause injury.
III. CONCLUSION
We answer the two certified questions in the affirmative and hold that Part Two of the Workers Compensation and Employers Liability Policy issued to PCR by Travelers, which covers claims for "bodily injury by accident" and excludes from coverage claims of "bodily injury intentionally caused . . . by ," extends coverage to a claim brought against PCR under the objectively-substantially-certain standard articulated in Turner. A claim brought under Turner's objectively-substantially-certain standard does not on its own or as a matter of law fall outside the scope of this particular employer's liability insurance policy. Whether a claim brought under the newly enacted virtual-certainty standard would fall outside such a policy is a different question, which we do not answer here. We also hold that public policy does not prohibit an employer from insuring against the risk of liability arising under Turner's objectively-substantially-certain standard.
It is so ordered.
PARIENTE, C.J., and ANSTEAD and LEWIS, JJ., concur.
WELLS, J., dissents with an opinion, in which QUINCE and CANTERO, JJ., concur.
QUINCE, J., dissents with an opinion, in which WELLS and CANTERO, JJ., concur.
WELLS, J., dissenting.
I would restate the question certified by the Eleventh Circuit to be:
Does the correct construction under Florida law of "PART TWO-EMPLOYERS LIABILITY INSURANCE" of the Travelers Insurance policy provide coverage to PCR for the claims brought by the two PCR employees for death and injury resulting from the explosion at the PCR chemical plant in 1991?
My answer to this rephrased question is "no."
I reach this conclusion by beginning the analysis at the same point we began our analysis of a similar policy in Humana Worker's Compensation Services v. Home Emergency Services, Inc., 842 So. 2d 778 (Fla. 2003). In Humana, we stated.
To determine whether there is coverage, as our threshold examination we must construe Section A of Part Two, the provision that explains "How This Insurance Applies." In this examination we are bound by rules of construction which we have long applied, the foremost of which is that insurance contracts must be construed in accordance with their plain language. See Auto-Owners Ins. Co. v. Anderson, 756 So. 2d 29, 34 (Fla. 2000); Prudential Property & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Swindal, 622 So. 2d 467, 470 (Fla. 1993). Applying this rule to this coverage provision, the issue is then whether this claim for spoliation of evidence is a claim for "bodily injury by accident."
842 So. 2d at 781. The language of the Travelers policy is identical to the policy in Humana in stating:
PART TWO-EMPLOYERS LIABILITY INSURANCE.
A. How This Insurance Applies
This employers liability insurance applies to bodily injury by accident or bodily injury by disease. Bodily injury includes resulting death.
In accord with the framework we laid out for analysis of this policy, the threshold issue here is whether these claims are "claims for bodily injury by accident."
On this threshold issue, I agree with Justice Quince. While I respect the precedent of the line of Florida cases cited in the majority opinion which have stated that tort law principles do not control the construction of the provisions of insurance contracts, majority op. at 14, citing to Prudential Property
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