Case Name: ALLSTATE INDEMNITY COMPANY, Appellant, v. Lesley Armstrong WISE a/k/a Lesley Armstrong, John Richard Jablon, Jr., Cathy Burkholder, and Van McArthur Brown, Appellees
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 2001-05-30
Citations: 818 So. 2d 524
Docket Number: No. 2D99-1646
Parties: ALLSTATE INDEMNITY COMPANY, Appellant, v. Lesley Armstrong WISE a/k/a Lesley Armstrong, John Richard Jablon, Jr., Cathy Burkholder, and Van McArthur Brown, Appellees.
Judges: CAMPBELL, MONTEREY, (Senior) Judge, Concurs.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 818
Pages: 524–530

Head Matter:
ALLSTATE INDEMNITY COMPANY, Appellant, v. Lesley Armstrong WISE a/k/a Lesley Armstrong, John Richard Jablon, Jr., Cathy Burkholder, and Van McArthur Brown, Appellees.
No. 2D99-1646.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.
May 30, 2001.
Rehearing Denied July 24, 2001.
Stuart J. Freeman of Brasfield, Fuller, Freeman, Lovell & O’Hern, P.A., St. Pe-tersburg, for Appellant.
B. Larry Smith, St. Petersburg, for Ap-pellees John Richard Jablon, Jr. and Cathy Burkholder.
F. James Bischoff of F. James Bischoff, P.A., St. Petersburg, for Appellee Van Mc-Arthur Brown.
No appearance for Appellee Lesley Armstrong.
Dock A. Blanchard of Blanchard, Merriam, Adel & Kirkland, P.A., Ocala, for The Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, Amicus Curiae.

Opinion:
NORTHCUTT, Judge.
Allstate Indemnity Company complains of the circuit court's refusal to declare that the appellees! injury claims were excluded from coverage under an automobile liability policy issued by Allstate. We affirm.
Allstate's insured, Lesley Armstrong, led a state trooper on a bizarre automobile chase that began when the trooper tried to apprehend Armstrong on a theft charge. In the end, Armstrong was charged with fleeing and eluding a law enforcement officer, reckless driving and running a stop sign. During the episode Armstrong was involved in two motor vehicle accidents. In the first, she lost control of her automobile when she applied her brakes at a crowded intersection. She struck a truck in which John Jablon and Cathy Burkholder were riding. Armstrong managed to drive away from the accident scene, still in flight from the state trooper. As the chase continued, she ran a stop sign and struck a car driven by Van Brown.
Jablon, Burkholder and Brown asserted claims under the bodily injury liability portion of Armstrong's automobile insurance policy. .In response, Allstate sued for a declaratory judgment that the claims were not covered by virtue of a policy exclusion for intentional acts. That language reads:
ALLSTATE will not pay for any damages an insured person is legally obligated to pay because of:
9. Bodily injury or property .damage which may reasonably be expected to result from the intentional or criminal acts of an insured person or which are in fact intended by an insured person.
Following a bench trial, the circuit court found that although Armstrong was intentionally fleeing from the state trooper when the first accident occurred, there was no evidence that she intentionally drove her vehicle into the truck occupied by Jab-. Ion and Burkholder. Similarly, the court determined that there was no evidence that Armstrong intended to collide with Brown when she ran the stop sign. Citing the Florida Supreme Court's decision in Prudential Property & Casualty Insurance Co. v. Swindal, 622 So.2d 467 (Fla.1993), the court held that under this subjective test the policy exclusion did not apply. It rendered judgment against Allstate.
In Swindal, our supreme court reaffirmed that Florida law requires both an intent to act and a specific intent to injure in order to bring a loss within the ambit of an intentional act coverage exclusion. There, the intentional act of pointing a gun at the victim coupled with the intent to injure would trigger the exclusion clause. But liability coverage would lie if the factfinder concluded that the shooter's act was "accidental," i.e., that he lacked the intent to injure. The court declared that neither Landis v. Allstate Insurance Co., 546 So.2d 1051 (Fla.1989), nor State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Marshall, 554 So.2d 504 (Fla.1989), had changed the law. In Lan-dis, the court held that an intentional injury exclusion clause excluded coverage for injuries suffered by children who were sexually molested while under the care of the insured because it found that an intent to injure is inherent in the act of sexually abusing a child. Marshall held that an intentional injury exclusion clause excluded coverage where the insured acted in self defense when he hit his attacker in the head with a gun.
The Swindal court recounted that application of a subjective test to determine the operation of an intentional acts exclusion is well established in Florida:
Florida law has long followed the general rule that tort law principles do not control judicial construction of insurance contracts. Insurance contracts are construed in accordance with the plain language of the policies as bargained for by the parties: Ambiguities are interpreted liberally in favor of the insured and strictly against the insurer who prepared the policy. Thus, intentional act exclusions are limited to the express terms of the policies and do not exclude coverage for injuries more broadly deemed under tort law principles to be consequences flowing from the insured's intentional acts.
Swindal, 622 So.2d at 470 (citations omitted). See also Allstate Ins. Co. v. Travers, 703 F.Supp. 911 (N.D.Fla.1988) (holding that insured's subjective intent to cause result must be shown in order for injury to be deemed "intentional injury" under exclusion).
Citing the contract interpretation principles recited in Swindal, Allstate points out that the terms in its exclusionary clause differ from the policy language in that case. In Swindal the policy excluded coverage for injury or damage "which is expected or intended by the insured." Swindal v. Prudential Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 599 So.2d 1314, 1318 (Fla. 2d DCA 1992). Allstate contends that its exclusion for injury or damage "which may reasonably be expected to result" from intentional "or criminal acts" must be effective even if the insured did not subjectively intend to injure the accident victims. In support of its argument Allstate points to our decision in Orear v. Allstate Insurance Co., 619 So.2d 974 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993). That case involved an exclusionary clause identical to this one, applied to a claimant who was injured while "slam dancing" in the company of the insured. Although we reversed a summary judgment in favor of the insurer, we appeared to give credence to the interpretation advanced by Allstate in this case. "We conclude there remains a material question of fact. Coverage can not be decided without determining if the actions of the insured were intended or could reasonably be expected to result in bodily injury." Orear, 619 So.2d at 975.
It is significant, however, that Orear involved a homeowners policy, as did Swindal and much of the case law addressing the scope of such exclusionary clauses. The interpretation of an automobile liability policy, such as in this case, necessarily involves consideration of strong public policy concerns that do not apply in the context of homeowners insurance. The public policy of this state strictly enforces minimum levels of insurance to protect the public. Our financial responsibility law, chapter 324, Florida Statutes (1995), declares:
It is the intent of this chapter to recognize the existing privilege to own or operate a motor vehicle on the public streets and highways of this state when such véhicles are used with due consideration for others and their property, and to promote safety and provide financial security requirements for such owners or operators whose responsibility it is to recompense others for injury to person or property caused by the operation of a motor vehicle. Therefore, it is required herein that the operator of a motor vehicle involved in a crash or convicted of certain traffic offenses meeting the operative provisions of s. 324.051(2) shall respond for such damages and show proof of financial ability to respond for damages in future accidents as a requisite to his or her future exercise of such privileges.
§ 324.011, Fla. Stat. (1995) (emphasis supplied). The financial responsibility laws are designed to protect the public from losses resulting from ownership and operation of motor vehicles, up to specified minimum amounts per person and per accident. See Ins. Co. of N. America v. Avis Rent-A-Car Sys., Inc., 348 So.2d 1149 (Fla.1977). An insurance policy procured to comply with the Financial Responsibility Law is "an insurance policy for the benefit of the public using the highways of this State. Therefore, it may not contain exclusions which destroy the effectiveness of the policy as to any substantial segment of that public." Makris v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 267 So.2d 105, 108 (Fla. 3d DCA 1972).
For this reason, the case before us is not strictly controlled by application of the contract principles recited in Swindal and espoused by Allstate. Indeed, courts in other 'states have been reluctant to apply criminal acts exclusions when examined in light of the public policy concerns inherent in automobile liability policies. See, e.g., Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Blood, 230 Mich.App. 58, 583 N.W.2d 476, 478-79 (1998) (finding exclusion for damages arising out of criminal acts ambiguous; coverage upheld under farm owners' liability policy for bodily injury and property damage arising from automobile accident); Mendoza v. Rivera-Chavez, 88 Wash.App. 261, 945 P.2d 232, 236-237 (1997) (declining to uphold felony exclusion in automobile insurance policy); Allstate Ins. Co. v. Beasley, 80 Wash.App. 565, 910 P.2d 483, 485 (1996) (when applying criminal acts exclusion, drew distinction between homeowners insurance and public policy favoring coverage in automobile insurance cases).
In Sledge v. Continental Casualty Co., 639 So.2d 805, 812 (La.Ct.App.1994), the court held that an automobile policy coverage exclusion for injury or damage arising out of an "act committed in violation of a law or ordinance" could be applied only to acts in violation of criminal law and that normally require specific or general intent. The court observed that a literal application of the policy language "would effectively deny coverage for all acts incidentally and technically constituting an infraction of the statutory 'rules of the road'...." Id. Noting that "a policyholder would normally not expect the instant exclusion to control in reference to speeding, running a stop sign; or failing to maintain control," the court declared that the expansive language of the coverage exclusion clearly conflicted with Louisiana's public policy that automobile liability insurance should protect innocent accident victims. Id.
We, too, conclude that Allstate's expansive intentional acts exclusion, if strictly applied, would contravene the public policy behind the financial responsibility laws.
Affirmed.
CAMPBELL, MONTEREY, (Senior) Judge, Concurs.
ALTENBERND, A.C.J., Dissents with opinion. , -