Title: Harleysville Insurance Companies v. David Garitta, et als.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: a-72-00
State: new-jersey
Issuer: new-jersey Supreme Court
Date: December 17, 2001

(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized). VERNIERO, J., writing for a majority of the Court. This appeal is based on a declaratory judgment action in which Harleysville Insurance Companies (Harleysville) sought a declaration that the homeowner's policy it issued to its insured did not provide coverage for conduct of the insured's son, who stabbed a third party during an altercation on the insured's premises, causing the victim's death. On September 15, 1996, David Garitta and five of his friends, among whom was Joseph Licata, were socializing at David's father's house in Greentown, Pennsylvania. During the course of the evening, Albert Sabatelli arrived at the house unexpectedly. Although David and Albert had been friends, unbeknownst to David, Albert had come to the home for the specific purpose of confronting David over what Albert perceived as David's disrespect of Albert's mother. The confrontation immediately became physical, Albert having pushed David. As the confrontation escalated, David informed Albert that he did not wish to fight. Nevertheless, the confrontation continued in the presence of the others, who ultimately told David and Albert to take their fight outside. Albert then went out on the deck, informing David that he would continue the fight outside. He then stood outside the door, shouting vulgarities at David. Although David had been terrified by the confrontation and by Albert's physical assaults, he believed that he had no choice but to go outside and confront Albert. As David walked down the hallway in preparation to go outside, Joseph Licata handed him a knife he had removed from the kitchen and told David to do what you gotta do . . . Cut him like we do in New Jersey. David put the knife in the back of his pants and went out onto the deck. According to David, Albert was waiting for him and immediately came towards him with his hands clenched. David got really scared, took the knife from behind his back and stabbed Albert twice, puncturing his heart and stomach. Albert was not armed and David had not warned Albert that he had a knife or that he would cut him if he approached. Although David knew that he had cut Albert, he indicated that he neither intended nor knew that he had inflicted a wound to Albert's heart. He claimed that he noticed that Albert had collapsed and had been injured seriously only after he had gone back into the house and washed and returned the knife to the kitchen, and only after he heard one of his friends scream. Although David attempted to administer CPR to Albert, he was pronounced dead at the scene a short time later. As a result of the altercation, Pennsylvania law enforcement authorities charged David with criminal homicide for intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or negligently caus[ing] the death of another human being. In March 1997, David pled guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. In September 1998, Albert's father, mother, and fiancée filed a wrongful death action in the Law Division against David, David's father, and Joseph Licata, seeking both compensatory and punitive damages. The complaint alleged that David and Licata instigated the altercation in which Albert was attacked and assaulted, and that David was otherwise negligent, reckless, and careless by his use of a weapon without due regard for the potential consequences of introducing the weapon into the altercation. Shortly after the filing of that complaint, Harleysville filed this action, seeking a declaration that the homeowner's policy it issued to David's father, which also covers David as a member of his father's household, provided no coverage to David for the injuries or death of Albert. Harleysville based its request for declaratory judgment on a provision in its homeowner's policy that stated that the insurer would not provide coverage for bodily injury which is expected or intended by the 'insured'[.] Based on that exclusion, Harleysville asserted that it was obligated neither to provide coverage to David for the wrongful death of Albert or to undertake David's defense of that action. The parties in the declaratory action filed motions for summary judgment. The trial court subsequently granted Harleysville's motion, concluding that the act of stabbing Albert itself demonstrated that David intended to cause him bodily injury within the meaning of the policy. Based on that same rationale, the trial court also determined that the insurer had no obligation to undertake David's defense in the wrongful death action. In an unreported decision, the Appellate Division reversed, concluding that a trial was required to determine what took place on the evening in question, how [Albert's] wounds were inflicted, and what David's intentions and expectations werer in using the knife given [to] him by Licata. The Supreme Court granted Harleysville's petition for certification. HELD: The trial court correctly granted summary judgment in favor of Harleysville Insurance Company, which sought to disclaim coverage on the basis of an intentional act exclusion in a homeowner's policy, the insurer having demonstrated that the insured intended to cause some injury, and that the actual injury that led to the victim's death was an inherently probable consequence of the insured's actions. 1. The words of an insurance policy are to be given their plain, ordinary meaning and in the absence of any ambiguity, courts should not write for the insured a better policy of insurance than the one purchased. Policy provisions that exclude coverage resulting from intentional wrongful acts are common, are accepted as valid limitations, and are consistent with public policy. (pp. 10-111) 2. As a general rule, policy exclusions of the type at issue here represent enforceable limitations to an insurance contract when free of ambiguity. Courts ordinarily should refrain from summary judgment in respect of whether an insured intended or expected to cause the actual injury to a third party unless the record undisputedly demonstrates that such injury was an inherently probable consequence of the insured's conduct. When the insured's conduct is particularly reprehensible, courts may presume an intent to injure without inquiring into the actor's actual intent. (pp. 11-16) 3. Under the circumstances of this case, a trier of fact need not determine David's actual intent. Harleysville has demonstrated that David intended to cause some injury, and that the actual injury that led to Albert's death was an inherently probable consequence of the insured's actions. Thus, the trial court properly determined the insured's intent within the meaning of the exclusionary clause, as a matter of law. (pp. 17-18) 4. Although David's criminal plea is helpful in putting David's actions in context, the Court is not bound by the implications of that criminal plea agreement when determining whether the insureds' policy exclusion should apply in this purely civil context. (pp. 18-21) 5. David's conduct in taking the knife and thrusting it into the victim should be viewed as a single act. Thus, in this unique circumstance, the Voorhees requirement of consideration of separate allegations when determining an insurer's duty to defend has been satisfied. (pp. 21-22) 6. David's repeated testimony that he did not intend Albert's death, accepted as true, does not alter the reality that the insured affirmatively stabbed Albert with a knife, an inherently dangerous object, given to him for the purpose of cutting or harming the victim. (pp. 23-25) 7. Because a self-defense exception to the intentional-wrong exclusion was available but not procured for this policy, that David may have acted in self defense or was a reluctant combatant is not dispositive of the coverage issue here. (p. 25) 8. The Court's holding is not intended to address the situation in which a burglar unlawfully enters an insured's residence, which situation would be governed in part by principles not implicated in this appeal. (pp. 25-26) 9. The Court's holding should not be read to establish a per se rule of excluding coverage whenever a knife or similar instrument is used by an insured and results in injury or death. (p. 26) 10. If the insured's conduct is particularly reprehensible, then the insured's intent may be presumed as a matter of law, without further inquiry by a trier of fact into whether the insured intended to cause the actual injury that resulted. Absent such exceptional circumstances, further inquiry still may be unnecessary if the actual injury inflicted was an inherently probable consequence of the insured's conduct. Because the mortal injury inflicted on Albert was an inherently probable consequence of the insured's actions, David's intent for purposes of the exclusion may be found as a matter of law, without further inquiry by a trier of fact. (pp. 27-28) Judgment of the Appellate Division is REVERSED and the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the insurer is REINSTATED. CHIEF JUSTICE PORITZ and JUSTICES STEIN, LaVECCHIA, and ZAZZALI join in JUSTICE VERNIERO's opinion. JUSTICE LONG has filed a separate dissenting opinion in which JUSTICE COLEMAN joins. HARLEYSVILLE INSURANCE COMPANIES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DAVID GARITTA, STEPHEN GARITTA and JOSEPH LICATA, Defendants, and ALBERT C. SABATELLI, III, ADMINISTRATOR AD PROSEQUENDUM AND GENERAL ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ESTATE OF ALBERT C. SABATELLI, IV, DECEASED, MILDRED M. RAFFERTY and KRISTY MARIE FERRIZZI, Defendants-Respondents. Argued September 17, 2001 -- Decided December 17, 2001 On certification to the Superior Court, Appellate Division. Betsy G. Liebman argued the cause for appellant (Capehart &amp; Scatchard, attorneys). James F. Zaccaria argued the cause for respondents (Morrison &amp; Trimble, attorneys; William E. Reynolds, on the letter in lieu of brief). The opinion of the Court was delivered by VERNIERO, J. This is a declaratory judgment action. Plaintiff insurer seeks a declaration that the homeowner's policy purchased by the insured does not provide liability coverage for certain conduct of the insured's son, also an insured person under the policy. Specifically, the son stabbed a third party during an altercation on the insured premises, and the victim died. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the insurer, concluding that the son's actions fell within the policy's provision excluding coverage for 'bodily injury' . . . [w]hich is expected or intended by the 'insured'[.] The Appellate Division disagreed. The panel concluded that the circumstances of the stabbing, together with the son's intent or expectation in wielding the knife that killed the victim, are sufficiently unclear that a trial is warranted. We agree with the trial court and reverse. Based on that standard, the panel determined that a factual dispute existed regarding whether Mark's broken hip was expected or intended by James, Jr. Id. at 465. Thus, a trial was necessary. In so concluding, the court also observed that young teenagers today, no less than their forebearers, are prone to engage in mutually accepted tests of dominance and prowess, involving physical contact. These may take the form of . . . king-of-the-hill assaults . . . in which, physicality notwithstanding, there is no intent to cause more than passing discomfort. Id. at 465 n.3. This Court adopted the Karlinski standard in SL Industries, supra, 128 N.J. at 212. In SL Industries, an employee had filed an employment discrimination suit against his employer, asserting age discrimination and common-law fraud arising out of the employer's elimination of the employee's position. Id. at 194. The employee alleged that he had suffered bodily and personal injury as manifested by loss of sleep, loss of self-esteem, humiliation and irritability. Id. at 195. The employer settled the suit and then sought a declaration that its insurer was obligated to indemnify it for the settlement. Id. at 195-96. We believe the Karlinski test presents the most reasonable approach. It conforms to an insured's objectively-reasonable expectations and provides the victim with the greatest possibility of additional compensation consistent with the goal of deterring intentional wrongdoing. Assuming the wrongdoer subjectively intends or expects to cause some sort of injury, that intent will generally preclude coverage. If there is evidence that the extent of the injuries was improbable, however, then the court must inquire as to whether the insured subjectively intended or expected to cause that injury. Lacking that intent, the injury [is] accidental and coverage will be provided. As a general rule, then, policy exclusions of the type at issue here represent enforceable limitations to an insurance contract when free of ambiguity. Courts ordinarily should refrain from summary judgment in respect of whether an insured intended or expected to cause the actual injury to a third party unless the record undisputedly demonstrates that such injury was an inherently probable consequence of the insured's conduct. In that latter circumstance, a trial may not be necessary to determine the applicability of the exclusion, provided that there has been a sufficient demonstration of the insured's subjective intent to cause some degree of injury. When the insured's conduct is particularly reprehensible, courts may presume an intent to injure without inquiring into the actor's actual intent. We reason similarly in this case. We cannot know why the Pennsylvania prosecutors accepted David's plea to third degree murder, why David considered that plea, or why his friend, Licata, refused to plead at all. Those questions, however, do not control the analysis. Notwithstanding the plea, we are convinced that the undisputed facts demonstrate that David's stabbing of Albert resulted in injuries leading ultimately to the victim's death, and that death was an inherently probable consequence of David's conduct. Thus, the exclusion applies in this setting. Defendants' second contention is equally unavailing. As noted, the wrongful death complaint makes a brief reference to David's purported recklessness, negligence, and carelessness[.] For purposes of the exclusion, however, we are persuaded that the gravamen of the wrongful death action from David's standpoint is that a single course of conduct resulted in liability. The heart of that action, as stated plainly in the complaint, is that David and Licata instigated the altercation in which [Albert] was attacked and assaulted. Therefore, in this unique circumstance, the Voorhees requirement of considering separate allegations when determining an insurer's duty to defend has been satisfied. To conclude otherwise would require us to assume that David's conduct in taking the knife was negligent or reckless, but that his act of thrusting it into Albert was intentional. Such fine parsing of facts may be appropriate in some settings. For our limited purposes, however, we view the insured's conduct to be a single act comprised of both the taking and thrusting of the knife into the victim. Because the probable consequences of that act inhere from the act itself, there is no coverage. Notwithstanding our conclusion that the exclusion applies irrespective of the disposition of the wrongful death action, we do not decide or suggest what issues or allegations remain to be tried in that action in respect of any party. We decide issues of coverage only. Further, we note that David's father, also an insured, is in a different position. In addition to allegations against David, the wrongful death complaint also alleges that David's father was negligent and careless in his supervision of both his son and the insured premises on the night of Albert's death. Because Harleysville's action seeks a declaration concerning its responsibilities to David only, our disposition does not implicate the insurer's obligations in respect of any allegations against David's father. Again, our approach has been replicated in other jurisdictions. One case, Economy Fire &amp; Casualty Insurance Co. v. Meyer, supra, 427 N.W.2d 742, is particularly instructive. In that case, the insured, who had been drinking heavily, visited his girlfriend's house and found another man sleeping in her bed. Ibid. The insured took a knife and fork from his girlfriend's kitchen, then proceeded to the bedroom and stabbed the man. Ibid. The insured explained his conduct as follows: I walked into the bedroom and there was the guy, laying in her bed. And I guess it got the better of me. I went nuts. I ran into the kitchen and I opened up the kitchen drawer. I don't know what, which drawer it was. I grabbed whatever was in there. And I ran in and I hit him with it. I didn't know if it was a fork, spoon, knife, I didn't know what it was. But, I was just so mad and I just hit him with it. And after I did that I ran out of the room. HARLEYSVILLE INSURANCE COMPANIES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DAVID GARITTA, STEPHEN GARITTA and JOSEPH LICATA, Defendants, and ALBERT C. SABATELLI, III, ADMINISTRATOR AD PROSEQUENDUM AND GENERAL ADMINISTRATOR OF THE ESTATE OF ALBERT C. SABATELLI, IV, DECEASED, MILDRED M. RAFFERTY and KRISTY MARIE FERRIZZI, Defendants-Respondents. LONG, J., dissenting Like the Appellate Division, I would reverse the grant of summary judgment in favor of Harleysville. I do not view this as a case in which David's intent can be presumed as a matter of law nor do I consider his essentially uncontroverted version of the events to warrant application of the particularly reprehensible conduct principle enunciated in Voorhees, supra, 128 N.J. at 184. Indeed, the Appellate Division's statement of the facts relevant to an inquiry under Brill, supra, 142 N.J. 520, reveal that they are equivocal at best on the critical matter of intent and that the majority's view require[s] us to ignore David's testimony as to his state of mind, his claimed desperate attempt to protect himself, everything that preceded the stabbing, and even the actual stabbing itself. As to that last point _ the infliction of the knife wounds _ it is significant that David described a swinging motion, with no attempt to stab and certainly no intent to stab in the heart or the stomach. Indeed, he says he thought he had cut Sabatelli's wrist, and only learned of Sabatelli's serious injury when someone else screamed and called it to his attention. None of that evidence is refuted. There is no medical evidence describing the stab wounds, or any expert testimony indicating how the wounds were inflicted, their depth, the amount of force necessary to inflict them, or anything else which would contradict David's version of the incident. (footnote omitted). Similarly, nothing has been presented to contradict defendant's version of Sabatelli's aggression, the beating Sabatelli was inflicting on David, David's being terrified of Sabatelli, and the practical impossibility of his avoiding the further confrontation which Sabatelli demanded. Under those circumstances, David's swinging the knife as he described, for the purpose of warding off Sabatelli's attack, could represent self-defense with no intention of expectation of inflicting an injury of any significant magnitude. We do not, of course, hold that David's version of the incident must be accepted. But we do conclude (particularly with no conflicting testimony or other evidence), that his story is not so improbable or unacceptable as to warrant rejection under the standard of Brill v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 142 N.J. 520, 540 (1995). If David's description of Sabatelli's aggressiveness is accepted, then David's state of mind is not difficult to comprehend, and if both those propositions are accepted, then David's version of the actual stabbing is not so unlikely that a court must reject it and conclude that no rational jury could accept it. And finally, if David's description of the incident is accepted, then the S.L. Industries and Karlinski tests do not necessarily lead to the conclusion that Sabatelli's death was the expected or intended result of David's actions. I fully agree with that analysis and subscribe to the Appellate Division's determination that a trial is required to determine what took place on the evening in question, how Sabatelli's wounds were inflicted, and what David's intentions and expectations were in using the knife given him by Licata. Coverage should depend on the outcome of that trial. I also subscribe to the Appellate Division's reversal of the summary judgment entered in favor of Harleysville on the duty to defend. The sole basis for the summary judgment was that there is no duty to defend in the absence of a duty to indemnify. Because I believe resolution of the duty to indemnify should await the outcome of the trial, the duty to defend should not be disposed of in such a way. Burd v. Sussex Mut. Ins. Co., 56 N.J. 383, 389-90, 267 A.2d 7 (1970). For those reasons, I respectfully dissent. NO. A-72 HARLEYSVILLE INSURANCE COMPANIES, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DAVID GARITTA, STEPHEN GARITTA and JOSEPH LICATA, Defendants, DECIDED December 17, 2001 Chief Justice Poritz