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Travelers Indemnity Co. v. PCR Incorporated12/9/2004
s policy provided coverage to PCR for bodily injury by accident or disease. Since this case does not involve bodily injury by disease, we must focus on the definition of bodily injury by accident in order to determine whether PCR was covered by the policy for the incident that killed Paul Turner and injured James Creighton. Unfortunately, the term "accident" is not defined in the policy. Therefore, we must look outside the policy for its definition.
The term "accident" is defined as " n unintended and unforeseen injurious occurrence; something that does not occur in the usual course of events or that could not be reasonably anticipated." Black's Law Dictionary 15 (7th ed. 1999); see also Koikos v. Travelers Ins. Co., 849 So. 2d 263, 267 (Fla. 2003) ("We hold that where the term 'accident' in a liability policy is not defined, the term, being susceptible to varying interpretations, encompasses not only 'accidental events,' but also injuries or damage neither expected nor intended from the standpoint of the insured."); Duff Hotel Co. v. Ficara, 7 So. 2d 790, 792 (Fla. 1942) ("'Accident' is not a technical legal term with a well bounded meaning. In Workmen's Compensation it has been applied to that which happens by chance or casually, that which proceeds from an unknown cause or the unusual which sometimes results from known causes."); Roberson v. United Servs. Auto. Ass'n, 330 So. 2d 745, 746 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976) ("Customarily, an accident is defined as an unexpected or unusual event; it is something which happens by chance and without design; it is an event from an unknown cause."); Braley v. American Home Assurance Co., 354 So. 2d 904, 905 (Fla. 2d DCA 1978) ("The courts have repeatedly held that the term 'accident,' as all other terms in an insurance policy not defined in the policy, should be given its everyday 'man-on-the-street' meaning. . . . We find, then, that the everyday man-on-the-street definition of 'accident' includes an unexpected result."). Since the explosion in the instant case was foreseeable and should have been anticipated, it was not an accident.
When this case was first before this Court, Turner v. PCR, Inc., 754 So. 2d 683 (Fla. 2000), we reaffirmed our prior decisions holding that Florida Worker's Compensation Law, codified in chapter 440, Florida Statutes (1997), does not provide immunity to employers who commit an intentional tort against their employees. See 754 So. 2d at 687. Guided by Fisher v. Shenandoah General Construction Co., 498 So. 2d 882 (Fla. 1986), Lawton v. Alpine Engineered Products, Inc., 498 So. 2d 879 (Fla. 1986), and Eller v. Shova, 630 So. 2d 537 (Fla. 1993), we stated that "in order to prove an intentional tort, the employer must be shown to have either 'exhibite a deliberate intent to injure or engage in conduct which is substantially certain to result in injury or death.'" 754 So. 2d at 683 (alterations in original) (quoting Fisher, 498 So. 2d at 883). Acknowledging that PCR did not deliberately intend to injure Creighton and Turner, we focused on the second part of this disjunctive test, i.e., whether PCR's conduct was substantially certain to result in injury or death. Id. at 688.
We adopted an objective standard for determining substantial certainty: "whether a reasonable person would understand that the employer's conduct was 'substantially certain' to result in injury or death to the employee." Id. at 688-89. We stated that "if a circumstance is substantially certain to produce injury or death, it cannot reasonably be said that the result is 'unexpected' or 'unusual,' and thus such an event would not be covered under workers' compensation immunity." Id. at 689. Applying that objective test to the facts at hand, we held that there wa
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