Opinion ID: 1753585
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Reasonable Investigation

Text: The Petersons argue that Ohio Casualty conducted a less than thorough investigation of the Holcomb claim before denying coverage, thereby leaving unresolved ambiguities in the pleadings which preclude a finding that Ohio Casualty had no duty to defend. In Allstate Ins. Co. v. Novak, supra , we recognized that a liability insurer's duty to defend could arise either from the factual allegations of a pleading filed against the insured or from information derived from other sources including its own investigation. See, also, Neff Towing Serv. v. United States Fire Ins. Co., supra ; Mapes Indus. v. United States F. & G. Co., supra . We have acknowledged that if an insurer must look beyond the pleadings in determining whether it is obligated to accept a tender of defense by an insured, so too must a court consider any relevant evidence outside the pleadings in resolving the legal issue of whether a duty to defend exists. See Neff Towing Serv. v. United States Fire Ins. Co., supra . For example, in Mapes Indus., the policy in question provided coverage for sudden and accidental injury to certain property. We concluded that the insurer had no duty to defend because neither the claimant's pleadings nor the additional information furnished by the insured established or permitted an inference that damage resulted from a sudden and accidental event. As the district court noted, in this case, we have the benefit of a completed set of facts in the underlying Holcomb litigation. This case is thus factually distinguishable from Allstate Ins. Co. v. Novak, supra , in which the underlying action against the insured was still pending at the time the declaratory judgment action to determine coverage was decided. In the circumstances of the instant case, we agree with the reasoning of the district court that an insurer's incomplete investigation, without more, does not establish that it had a duty to defend a concluded lawsuit against its insured. Rather, it must be shown that a more thorough investigation would have disclosed facts which would establish the existence of the duty. The record made by the parties on their cross-motions for summary judgment discloses no facts outside the pleadings which would bear on the issue of whether Ohio Casualty had a duty to defend Peterson in the now-completed Holcomb litigation, and we cannot assume that a more comprehensive investigation by Ohio Casualty would have disclosed any such facts. We are left with the pleadings filed in the underlying lawsuit, from which the parties agree that the coverage issue can be resolved.