The California Court of Appeal has held that where a homeowners policy covered various “personal injury” offenses caused by “accident,” the insurer has no duty to defend an insured against a suit alleging an “intentional and deliberate” false imprisonment. ( Lyons v. Fire Insurance Exchange (2008) WL 615887)
Facts
Plaintiff Stephen Lyons, a sports newscaster and former professional baseball player, met Stacey Roy while they were each vacationing with their families in Hawaii. After an afternoon of poolside conversation, Lyons accompanied Roy up the elevator to the floor where Roy’s hotel room was. The two then exited the elevator. According to Roy, Lyons then took Roy’s wrist, led her to a hallway alcove, partially removed her clothes and tried to force her to perform a sexual act.
Lyons had a somewhat different version of the incident. He admitted that he took Roy’s wrist, led her to the alcove and asked her to expose her breasts. However, he claimed that when Roy declined, he took her to the door of her hotel room and then he returned to the pool.
Roy subsequently filed a civil suit against Lyons, alleging assault, battery and false imprisonment. Lyons tendered the defense of the action to his homeowners insurer, Fire Insurance Exchange (FIE), under a policy covering “bodily injury,” “property damage” or “personal injury” resulting from an “occurrence.” The policy defined “personal injury” so as to include “false arrest, imprisonment… and detention,” and defined an “occurrence” as an “accident.” FIE denied Lyons’ tender on the ground that none of Roy’s claims against Lyons arose from an “occurrence,” or “accident,” as required by the FIE policy.
Lyons then sued FIE for breach of contract and bad faith, alleging that FIE had wrongfully failed to defend Lyons against Roy’s lawsuit. However, the trial court found that Roy’s suit against Lyons was not potentially covered under the FIE policy and thus entered summary judgment in favor of FIE.
Holding
The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of FIE.
First, the Court rejected Lyons’ argument that the requirement of an “accident” did not apply to “personal injury” offenses such as “false imprisonment.” Rather, the Court held that that the “accident” requirement applied to all coverages under the policy – bodily injury, property damage and personal injury.
Second, the Court held that under the undisputed facts (i.e., that Lyons took Roy’s wrist in the context of his sexual advances, and that his conduct restrained her), there was no way that the alleged false imprisonment arose from an “accident.” To the contrary, all of Lyons’ conduct was intentional and deliberate. Although Lyons may have believed that Roy would consent to his sexual advances, that did not turn Lyons’ intentional conduct into an “accident” because, under California law, the term “accident” refers to the nature of the insured’s conduct, not his state of mind. Therefore, mistaken consent does not, as a matter of law, create an accident for coverage purposes. The Court pointed out that there may be situations where a false imprisonment can occur by “accident” (e.g., where a shopkeeper at closing time intentionally locks his storage vault but forgets that he had sent an employee inside to take inventory). Here, however, Lyons’ deliberate conduct (taking Roy by the wrist in the context of a sexual advance) could not be characterized as an “accident.”
Since there was no potential for coverage under the policy, FIE did not have a duty to defend Lyons against Roy’s lawsuit, and summary judgment in favor of the FIE was proper.
Comment
Note that standard liability policies covering “personal injury” offenses do not require an “accident.” Here, however, the FIE policy was not a standard policy: it specifically limited coverage to “personal injury” resulting from an “accident.” Ultimately, the Court attempted to give effect to the FIE policy as written, essentially holding that the policy would cover an insured for a “negligent” false imprisonment, but would not cover an insured for an “intentional” false imprisonment. It is likely that if the Court had been considering a policy with standard “personal injury” coverage (which does not require an “accident”), the Court would have found at least a duty to defend.