 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Cole v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Company6/14/2000
cur in light of the insured's past conduct. See id. If the answer to the objective question of the test was also in the negative, then the insured's death was the result of an "accident." See id.
Applying the foregoing analytical paradigm to facts before it, the court found no direct evidence in the record that established Mr. Hawkins expected to be murdered. It then sought to determine whether a reasonable person in Mr. Hawkins's position would have thought that the attack was highly likely to occur. The court concluded that although substantial evidence existed establishing that Mr. Hawkins severely abused Ms. Hawkins, including a fierce beating just hours before she eventually killed him, reasonable minds could differ as to whether, under the objective prong of the test, Mr. Hawkins's death was the result of an "accident." The court rejected the summary judgment motions because the resolution of the case was dependent on a question more properly for the trier of fact to resolve.
The test applied by the Court in Lincoln Nat'l Life Ins. strikes us as essentially a more detailed version of the analytical approach we most recently employed in Sheets. The federal court's approach comports with Maryland law because it defines "accident" from the point of view of the insured. Specifically, and most germane to the case at hand, the test analyzes in detail and in a logical sequence the events of an intentional tort from the perspective of an insured who is also the victim of the intentional tort. Such is the factual context of the present case. Due to the conformity of the federal court's reasoning with our prior pronouncements in this area of Maryland law, as well as the factual similarities between Lincoln Nat'l Life Ins. and the present case, we adopt and shall employ here the test applied in Lincoln Nat'l Life Ins.
Applying that test to the present case, it is clear to us that Ms. Cole's death was the result of an "accident" as that term should be interpreted in her State Farm insurance policy. Respondent offered no evidence suggesting that, at the time Ms. Cole traveled to Mr. Cave's home, she expected that Mr. Cave was going to attempt to kill her. Viewing the undisputed facts of the case objectively, there is also no evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could determine that a reasonable person in the same situation as Ms. Cole would have expected to be shot and killed as she sat in her van in Mr. Cave's driveway. From Ms. Cole's perspective, as the insured victim, the events which caused her death were "unforeseen, unusual and unexpected," and therefore an "accident." See Sheets, 342 Md. at 652, 679 A.2d at 548; Harleysville, 248 Md. at 151-52, 235 A.2d at 558; see also Glens Falls Ins. Co., 254 Md. at 127, 254 A.2d at 662; Treas, 254 Md. at 620, 255 A.2d at 298.
We also consider other jurisdictions that have dealt with the issue before us in analogous first party coverage situations. We do so in recognition that:
like a state which adopts, by copying, a foreign statute, . . . parties who adopt an insurance policy, which apparently has had nationwide use and has been judicially construed in five or six states, adopt with it the uniform judicial construction that it has received in other states . . . In other words, while the contract term on its face may be ambiguous, . . . the court in this situation may treat the term as unambiguous and, absent any factual dispute, adopt, as a matter of law, that construction placed on the language by the courts of other states. Pacific Indem. Co., 302 Md. at 401, 488 A.2d at 495 (citations and internal quotations omitted). We find that our holding is in accord with those in the majority of states that have con
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Maryland Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|