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Travelers Indemnity Co. v. PCR Incorporated12/9/2004
amages resulting from CTC's setback violation were caused by "an accident." If so, they were covered by the policy; if not, they were not. State Farm, the insurer, argued that the case was controlled by our earlier decision in Hardware Mutual Casualty Co. v. Gerrits, 65 So. 2d 69 (Fla. 1953), a case involving remarkably similar facts. We held in Gerrits that the construction of a home over the property line was not "an accident" within the meaning of the policy (which left the term undefined) because the builder had "deliberately and designedly (although erroneously) located the building on a part of the adjoining property and he intended to build it at that particular site." CTC Development, 720 So. 2d at 1074 (quoting Gerrits, 65 So. 2d at 71). Gerrits relied on the principle that " n effect which is the natural and probable consequence of an act or course of action is not an accident." Id. (quoting Gerrits, 65 So. 2d at 70) (emphasis omitted). Gerrits reasoned that it did not matter whether the builder intended or expected the result because the result was the natural and probable consequence of its deliberate act. Id.
In CTC Development, we rejected Gerrits' reasoning. Gerrits erred, we held, in importing the tort law principle of "natural and probable consequences" into the context of insurance policy interpretation. Id. ("Florida law has long followed the general rule that tort law principles do not control judicial construction of insurance contracts.") (quoting Swindal, 622 So. 2d at 470). Interpreting the term "accident," which the policy left undefined, in accordance with the principles of insurance policy interpretation rather than tort law, we held that the policy in CTC Development covered "not only 'accidental events,' [i.e., accidental or unwilled acts,] but also damages or injuries that are neither expected nor intended from the viewpoint of the insured." Id. at 1072. This, we held, was the proper definition of "the term 'accident' in a liability policy [in which the term] is not defined." Id. at 1076.
Travelers argues that we should apply the CTC Development definition of "accident" to the "by accident" coverage clause at issue here. If we were to apply this definition, Travelers argues, the policy could not be interpreted to extend coverage to the injured employees' Turner claims. Travelers' argument, however, is unpersuasive. Assuming that we should use the CTC Development definition in interpreting this policy, the result still would not support Travelers' argument that a claim brought under Turner's objectively-substantially-certain standard, by definition and as a matter of law, cannot be considered a claim for "bodily injury by accident" and, therefore, necessarily falls outside the scope of the policy's coverage clause. The flaw in this argument is that the CTC Development definition evaluated intent or expectation from the insured's subjective point of view. 720 So. 2d at 1072. CTC Development extended the scope of the term "accident" to include not only damages resulting from unintentional or accidental acts, but also to include damages resulting from intentional or volitional acts as long as the insured actor neither intended nor expected the resulting damages. To satisfy the objectively-substantially-certain standard of Turner, on the other hand, an injured employee need not prove that his or her employer actually expected that its conduct would result in injury. Rather, under Turner, an injured employee only needs to demonstrate that his or her employer should have expected that injury would result. Turner, 754 So. 2d at 688-89. At the least, therefore, the policy's "by accident" coverage clause, if interpreted in accordance with our CTC Development definition, would prov
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