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C.P. v. Allstate Insurance Company3/3/2000
may expressly preclude coverage when damage to an insured's property is caused by both a covered and an excluded risk." The clause in Bongen expressly and unambiguously resolved the problem presented by a loss that was caused in part by both a covered cause and an excluded cause.
The Lancasters' policy contains no equivalent clause in its liability coverage part. Its use of analogous clauses in the property loss coverage part demonstrates that Allstate knew how to phrase an exclusion unambiguously when it wished to address multiple causes. An insured familiar with the entire policy could reasonably conclude from the absence of a similar clause in the liability coverage part that Allstate was not attempting to exclude multiple causes with respect to the intentional and criminal act liability exclusions.
Both sides discuss the efficient proximate cause doctrine in passing. Allstate argues that we have never adopted the doctrine in Alaska and that, in any event, it must yield to unambiguous policy provisions. It also argues that Harold's conduct, not that of the elder Lancasters, was the efficient cause of the loss. In Bongen we considered the "efficient proximate cause" rule, which we described as follows:
" hen a loss is sustained by a sequence or concurrence of at least two causes, one covered under [an insurance] policy and the other excluded under the policy, the cause setting the chain of events in motion is the cause to which the loss is attributed . . . ." Other courts have defined efficient proximate cause to mean the predominant cause, rather than the cause which is first in time.[ ]
We decided "to recognize the efficient proximate cause rule only when the parties have not chosen freely to contract out of it." We held there that the unambiguous policy terms excluded the loss. Justice Matthews, dissenting, stated that "it seems correct to conclude that we have impliedly accepted the efficient proximate cause doctrine. Moreover, as noted, the efficient proximate cause doctrine is widely accepted among American jurisdictions. There is no reason not to accept it in Alaska."
Allstate and the Lancasters did not contract out of the efficient proximate cause rule, but that does not mean that it applies here in order to defeat coverage. The doctrine is a court-made rule applied to preserve insureds' reasonable expectations. If a policy is ambiguous because it can be interpreted reasonably both to cover and not to cover particular losses, there is no reason to invoke the efficient proximate cause rule because the ambiguous policy terms must be interpreted in favor of coverage. Perhaps the rule would apply if the claimant has asserted that the insured seeking coverage has acted both intentionally and negligently. Consider, for example, an insured homeowner who unjustifiably points a loaded pistol at a visitor, who then flees in fright and is injured when he falls on the homeowner's negligently maintained icy steps. What is the predominant cause of the injury , the criminal assault or the negligent maintenance? But C.P.'s complaint does not claim that the elder Lancasters' acts were both negligent and intentional or criminal. And Allstate does not suggest that they knew Harold had any propensity to assault children and that their conduct was in fact intentional. Accordingly, we see no reason to apply the efficient proximate cause rule here.
We conclude from the language of the entire policy that Allstate did not clearly and unambiguously exclude coverage for the claims that the elder Lancasters negligently contributed to C.P.'s injuries. We therefore hold that Allstate's policy covered C.P.'s claims against the elder Lancasters.
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