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Travelers Indemnity Co. v. PCR Incorporated12/9/2004
ide coverage for a Turner claim unless the injured employee demonstrated that the insured employer actually expected (with expectation measured to the degree of substantial certainty) that its conduct would result in injury. Interpreting the coverage clause in this way probably would preclude coverage of a claim brought under the newly enacted, virtual-certainty standard, but it does not, as a matter of law, preclude coverage under the more liberal, objectively-substantially-certain standard articulated in Turner.
2. The Exclusionary Clause
The next point of contention between the parties involves the proper interpretation of the exclusionary clause. The parties' respective arguments on this issue essentially are identical to their arguments on the coverage-clause issue. Travelers argues that any claim brought under the intentional-tort exception, by definition, must be excluded under an injury -intentionally-caused exclusionary clause. More precisely, Travelers argues that Turner rested on the notion that intent to injure would be imputed by law to conduct that was objectively substantially certain to cause injury; otherwise, Travelers contends, such conduct would not satisfy the intentional-tort exception. See Turner, 754 So. 2d at 691 ("This [objectively substantially certain] standard imputes intent upon employers in circumstances where injury or death is objectively substantially certain to occur.") (internal quote marks omitted). As it did in response to Travelers' coverage-clause arguments, PCR contends that Travelers again seeks improperly to interpret an insurance policy in accordance with tort law principles. Again, we conclude that PCR is correct. In order for this particular exclusionary clause to apply, the insured must have acted with the specific intent to cause injury.
We begin by noting, as we did above, that "tort law principles do not control judicial construction of insurance contracts." Swindal, 622 So. 2d at 470. In holding that this exclusionary clause applied only if the insured acted with the specific intent to injure, the federal district court relied on two decisions of Florida's district courts of appeal. The first case was Cloud v. Shelby Mutual Insurance Co., 248 So. 2d 217 (Fla. 3d DCA 1971), in which the Third District Court of Appeal interpreted an injury-intentionally-caused exclusionary clause in an automobile liability insurance policy. Cloud, the insured, "impatiently sought to push out of his way a car blocking him in a driveway. His bumper overrode the bumper of the car ahead, and seriously injured . . . a passenger in the pushed car." Id. at 217-18. Cloud's insurer argued that it was not obligated under the insurance policy to defend Cloud in the suit brought against Cloud by the injured passenger, arguing that the claim was excluded from coverage under the injury-intentionally-caused exclusionary clause (excluding from coverage "bodily injury or property damage caused intentionally by or at the direction of the insured"). Id. at 218. The parties stipulated that Cloud "intentionally push " the car but did not "intentionally cause" the injuries to the car's passenger. Id. The district court concluded that under such a clause "coverage is not excluded as a matter of law where there was an 'intentional act' but not an 'intentionally caused' injury." Id. (citing W.E. Merritt III, Annotation, Liability Insurance: Specific Exclusion of Liability for Injury Intentionally Caused by Insured, 2 A.L.R. 3d 1238 (1965)). The court adopted the rule that injury or damage is "caused intentionally" within the meaning of an "intentional injury exclusion clause" if the insured has acted with the specific intent to cause harm to a third party, with the result that the
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