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Cole v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Company6/14/2000
sidered how to define the term "accident" in similar types of first party coverage contexts. See Fox v. Country Mut. Ins. Co., 964 P.2d 997 (Or. 1998)(in party's claim for insurance coverage following an intentional car crash, the court must view the event from the perspective of the insured); Roque v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., 467 A.2d 1128, 1129 (Pa. 1983)(in interpreting a double indemnity clause of a life insurance policy "the test of whether an injury is the result of an accident is to be determined from the view point of the insured and not the viewpoint of one who committed the act causing injury."); Nallan v. Union Labor Life Ins. Co., 366 N.E.2d 874, 875-76 (N.Y. 1977)(whether a shooting from an unknown assailant is accidental is determined by looking at the event from the point of view of the insured to see whether the shooting was unexpected, unusual, and unforeseen); Republic Nat'l Life Ins. v. Hayward, 536 S.W.2d 549, 552 (Tex. 1976)(test of whether a murder is accidental under a life insurance policy is determined from the viewpoint of the insured); Provident Life and Accident Ins. Co., 311 So.2d 294, 297 (Ala. 1975)(the issue of whether a death was accidental for the purposes of an accidental death policy must be resolved from the standpoint of the insured); Steele v. General American Life Ins. Co., 535 P.2d 948, 953 (Kan. 1975)(when an insured is killed in an encounter or fight with another his or her death is caused "through accidental means," as that phrase is used in an accidental insurance policy, if the insured did not reasonably anticipate that he or she would be killed by his antagonist); Bakos v. Insura Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 709 N.E.2d 175, 178 (Ohio Ct. App. 1997)(when an insured is killed by another and the killing is unforseen by the victim, the death accidental); Moss v. Protective Life Ins Co., 417 S.E.2d 340, 341 (Ga. Ct. App. 1992)(if insured was killed while the aggressor in an assault and he knew or should have known that he might be killed in the altercation, then his death is not accidental); Pfeifer v. World Service Life Ins. Co., 360 N.W.2d 65 (Wis. Ct. App. 1984)(death results from an accident, under terms of life insurance policy, only if insured did not know or expect actions would result in his or her death); see generally Ferdinand S. Tino, Annotation, Accident Insurance: Death or Injury Intentionally Inflicted by Another as Due to Accident or Accidental Means, 49 A.L.R.3d 673 (1973 & 1999 Supp.)(" he rule seems to be settled that although an insured is intentionally killed or injured by another person, the death or injury is deemed to have been caused by accident . . . where it was neither foreseen, expected, nor anticipated by the insured.").
One additional consideration figures in reaching our holding in the present case. This Court has held in the past that when a term of an insurance policy is found to be ambiguous, a court will construe the ambiguous term against the drafter of the contract. See Cheney v. Bell Nat'l Life Ins. Co., 315 Md. 761, 766-67, 556 A.2d 1135, 1138 (1989). In this case, Respondent asserted that no ambiguity exists in the meaning of the term "accident" and we should not construe the term against it. We disagree.
As stated earlier, a contract term is ambiguous if a reasonable person could determine that the contract term is susceptible to at least two different meanings. See Pacific Indem., 302 Md. at 389, 488 A.2d at 489; Pryseski, 292 Md. at 198, 438 A.2d at 288. Contrary to its position in the present case, i.e., that the acts which caused Ms. Cole's death should be viewed from the perspective of the actor, Respondent has argued to other appellate courts, in analogous circumstances, that the term "accident" should be defi
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