Opinion ID: 398579
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Costs of Defending Suits Against Keene

Text: 49 The policies provide that the insurer shall defend any suit against Keene for damages due to bodily injury, even if the suit is groundless, false or fraudulent. The insurers' duty to defend Keene and to pay Keene for its defense costs are more broad than their duty to indemnify Keene. As long as a complaint indicates that Keene may be liable for an injury, an insurer must defend Keene if the facts alleged in the complaint indicate that its policy covers the alleged injury. Because we hold that each insurer is fully liable to Keene for indemnification, it follows that each is fully liable for defense costs. 37 50 Of course, only the insurer that Keene selects will defend Keene. The duty of that insurer is simply to defend Keene, not to minimize its own liability. As we state below, the factual basis of the insurers' contract obligations may be developed independently of the factual basis of the tort suit. If it is possible to resolve both the tort dispute and the insurance contract dispute together, without disrupting the tort victim's suit and without imposing undue inconvenience on the victim, a trial court may do so. Otherwise the two disputes should be resolved separately. This should eliminate the possibility that the insurer that represents Keene at trial will attempt to skew the factual record to the disadvantages of other insurers. 38