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C.P. v. Allstate Insurance Company3/3/2000
ted intentionally. In comparison, Exclusion 1.b) applies only to acts of "an insured person." If it does not matter for purposes of Exclusion 1.a) whether an insured person was the intentional actor, the joint obligations clause, which attributes Harold's acts to the elder Lancasters, is not relevant to Exclusion 1.a) either. That means that the exclusion must be interpreted without reference to the joint obligations clause.
Second, if the joint obligations clause does apply to this exclusion, it does not resolve the multiple-cause problem discussed above. Attributing Harold's alleged conduct to the elder Lancasters still leaves open the possibility that the injury was the result of both intentional and negligent acts. Allstate had to take the complaint's allegations as true, and had to assume that the elder Lancasters' negligent acts or omissions were at least a contributing cause of C.P.'s injuries. Simply attributing Harold's intentional conduct to the elder Lancasters does not clearly and unambiguously withdraw coverage for C.P.'s claim that the elder Lancasters' negligent, unintentional conduct injured her.
A similar analysis applies to the pertinent criminal act exclusion, Exclusion 2.a). Again, the joint obligations clause does not clearly apply to this exclusion because it is not unambiguously limited to the acts of insured persons. And again, the joint obligations clause does not deal unambiguously with multiple causes of injury .
We conclude that the attribution is irrelevant to either exclusion where the claims against the insureds who claim coverage are based on their negligent, unintentional, non-criminal conduct.
A provision in a different part of Allstate's policy supports our conclusion that the joint obligations clause does not unambiguously resolve the problem of multiple causation. The property loss coverage part contains this exclusion:
We do not cover loss to the property . . . resulting in any manner from:
7. One or more of the items listed below, if that item is one of two or more causes of a loss and if the other causes(s) of the loss is (are) excluded by this policy:
a) Conduct, act, failure to act, or decision of any person, group, organization or governmental body whether intentional, wrongful, negligent or without fault.
This exclusion makes it clear that there is no coverage for property losses in cases of multiple causes where all of the causes are excluded under the policy. Moreover, this clause defines one class of excluded losses in terms of a cause, which, even though it could be covered if it acted alone, is excluded because it combines with a cause of loss expressly excluded by the policy. This clause therefore has the effect of excluding losses in multi-cause situations. This clause demonstrates that Allstate knew how to address this multi-cause problem when it wanted to. No equivalent provision is to be found in Allstate's liability coverage. The joint obligations clause does not address this issue.
The property coverage part provides a second interesting comparison. It covers a "direct loss" caused by some events which are otherwise excluded. The policy defines "direct loss" to include a loss caused by a named peril if it "is the last in time to occur when the loss is caused by more than one peril." This definition again demonstrates that Allstate knew how to deal with losses with multiple causes, in this example by using a last-in-time approach.
We have held that the presence of a multi-cause exclusion is significant. In State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Bongen, we held that a multi-cause exclusion was not ambiguous and that "an insurer
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