Multiple Acts + One Accident = One Occurrence
On May 31, Division 1 of the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected an insured’s argument that five independent acts of negligence causing a single accident entitled the insured to the aggregate claims limit of $2,000,000 rather that the $1,000,000 per occurrence limit of the CGL policy. The Court held that the policy’s definition of an “occurrence” as an “accident” required the coverage analysis to center on the event rather than its causes.
Two lineman trainees sustained serious injuries when the utility pole they were working on broke beneath them—sending them to the ground. The trainees claimed that several of defendant’s acts contributed to the failure of the pole, such as negligent supervision and negligent maintenance, and cited to an Arizona Supreme Court case, Arizona Property and Casualty Insurance Guarantee Fund v. Helme, 153 Ariz. 129 (1987), for the proposition that several negligent causative acts required the application of the more generous aggregate policy limits.
The Court of Appeals distinguished Helme based upon its different definition of “occurrence.” The Helme policy defined an occurrence as “any incident, act, or omission”—focusing on the act of negligence rather than the resulting event. This policy defined an occurrence as “an accident” focusing on the unforeseen event, which in this case was the collapse of the utility pole.
In Arizona, at least for the moment, the definition of “occurrence” in a liability policy will be important to the application of policy limits to a claim.
Cincinnati Indemnity Company v. Southwest Line Constructors Joint Apprenticeship and Training Program, No. 1 CA-CV 17-0238, 2018 WL 2440627 (Ariz. Ct. App. Div. 1 May 31, 2018)
