Opinion ID: 1506273
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: fortuityjury instructions.

Text: The majority opinion reverses and remands for a new trial the issue of fortuity because of an allegedly improper jury instruction. In doing so, it has seriously misconstrued the holding in James Graham Brown Foundation, Inc. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co., 814 S.W.2d 273 (Ky.1991). ANC raised the fortuity defense only against the claims of the Commonwealth (NREPC) and U.S. Ecology. Implicit in the concept of insurance is that the loss occur as a result of a fortuitous event, not one planned, intended, or anticipated.  Lee R. Russ & Thomas F. Segalla, 7 Couch on Insurance 3d § 101:2, at 101-8 (1997) (emphasis added). The fortuity principle is central to the notion of what constitutes insurance. The insurer will not and should not be asked to provide coverage for a loss that is reasonably certain or expected to occur within the policy period. Eric Mills Holmes & Mark S. Rhodes, 1 Appleman on Insurance 2d § 1.4, at 26 (1996) (emphasis added). Because the fortuity principle never appears in insurance contracts, it is sometimes referred to as the unnamed exclusion. Stephen A. Cozen & Richard C. Bennett, Fortuity: The Unnamed Exclusion, 20 Forum 222, 222 (1985). The principle is rooted in common law and in the statutes of some states. M. Elizabeth Medaglia, et al., The Status of Certain Nonfortuity Defenses in Casualty Insurance Coverage, 30 Tort & Ins. L.J. 943, 945 (1995). Contrary to the assertion in the majority opinion, Brown Foundation did not hold that the fortuity principle entitled the insured to coverage unless it had specific and subjective intent to cause the pollution giving rise to the CERCLA claims. Ante, at 836 (emphasis added). What Brown Foundation held was that if injury was not actually and subjectively intended or expected by the insured, coverage is provided even though the action giving rise to the injury itself was intentional and the injury foreseeable. 814 S.W.2d at 278 (emphasis added). At trial, the issue was submitted to the jury by an interrogatory that asked the jury if it believed that the Commonwealth's share of the site costs now required by the EPA were expected, intended, anticipated or foreseen by the Commonwealth when the insurance policy was issued. I agree that the interrogatory varied slightly from Brown Foundation 's holding by including the word anticipated (though such conformed to the definition recited in Couch, supra, and anticipated is indistinguishable from expected to occur, which is recited in Appleman, supra ). Requiring a specific and subjective intent to cause the pollution is a far greater standard than Brown Foundation 's intended or expected the injury requirement and would equate the fortuity defense with the intentional act exclusion found in most liability insurance policies. The fortuity defense was properly adopted and defined in Brown Foundation and we should either follow Brown Foundation or overrule it. I would further note that since the majority holds that clean-up costs are not covered by the ANI policies, the fortuity issue pertains only to the site improvement measures. Those measures were not ordered because the Commonwealth cause[d] the pollution, ante, at 836, but to repair and improve the site's containment features so as to alleviate the threat that pollution might migrate to the property of others in the future. Whether the Commonwealth intentionally caused pollution would only be relevant to whether it was liable for clean-up costs. If the Facility Form did cover the site improvement measures (which it does not), a proper interrogatory with respect to the fortuity defense under Brown Foundation would be, e.g.: Did the Commonwealth intend or expect, when the Facility Form policy was issued, that future repairs and improvements to the facility, such as those subsequently recommended by the EPA, would be necessary?