Opinion ID: 2971604
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The first section

Text: The heading of the first section of the Endorsement contains several typographical errors, and is grammatically garbled, but neither the typographical errors nor the grammatical mistakes create any doubt about the two central ideas expressed in this section of the text. First, “[t]his insurance does not apply to actions and proceedings to recover damages for bodily injuries or property damage arising from” any of the categories included in the list under the heading of the first section. Second, Monticello “is under no duty to defend or to indemnify an insured in any such action or proceeding arising from” one of the listed categories. The policy’s statement that “the following are excluded form [sic] coverage” is redundant, as it expresses the same idea as the clause to which it is ungrammatically appended. Next is the list of behaviors after the heading: “Assault,” “Battery,” and “Harmful or offensive contact between or among two or more persons.” For this reason, the only plausible reading of the text of the first section is that no action to recover for bodily -6- No. 03-4277 Monticello Ins. Co. v. Hale injury or property damage arising from assault, battery, or harmful contact between two or more persons is covered by the policy. As noted by the district court, cases in which the Ohio courts have interpreted similar language support this reading. See Negron v. Odeon Concert Club, Inc., No. 73156, 1998 WL 229498, at -3 (Ohio Ct. App. May 7, 1998) (unpublished) (holding that claims arising from the trampling of a bar patron during a brawl were excluded by a policy that denied coverage for “claims or suits to recover damages for bodily injury or property damage arising from actual or alleged assault and/or battery,” and defined assault as “harmful . . . contact between . . . two or more persons”); see also Schneider v. Northland Ins. Co., No. C-980791, 1999 WL 728540, at  (Ohio Ct. App. Sept. 17, 1999) (unpublished) (holding that claims arising from an assault committed by a bar employee were excluded under policy language providing that the insurance company was “not liable for injuries ‘arising out of assault and battery or out of any act or omission’ resulting in an assault and battery”); Sphere Drake Ins. Co. v. Ross, 609 N.E.2d 1284, 1285-86 (Ohio Ct. App. 1992) (holding that the plaintiff’s claim that a bar was negligent in hiring the security staff who allegedly assaulted him was excluded by an insurance policy that denied coverage for “bodily injury or property damage arising out of assault and battery or out of any act or omission in connection with the prevention or suppression of such acts”). The exclusion in the key case relied upon by Spanky’s, in contrast, contained less precise language. See Liquor Liab. Joint Underwriting Ass’n v. Hermitage Ins. Co., 644 N.E.2d 964, 966 (Mass. 1995) (holding that an insurance policy providing coverage for injuries caused by “an accident . . . which results in bodily injury or property damage neither expected nor intended from -7- No. 03-4277 Monticello Ins. Co. v. Hale the point of view of the insured,” together with a proviso that “[a]ssault and/or battery shall not be deemed an accident,” did not exclude an assault by a third party). Furthermore, as the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts noted, the endorsements issued by Hermitage after this assault were “much more precise with respect to excluded coverage,” containing language resembling the policy in the present case: “[T]his insurance does not apply to bodily injury or property damage arising or alleged to arise out of . . . [a]n assault and/or battery caused by or at the instigation or direction of . . . the insured, his agent or employee[,] . . . any patron of the insured[,] or . . . any other person.” Id. at 967-68, n.5 (quotation marks omitted). The contrast between the policy language at issue in Liquor Liability and the language at issue here, as well as the Liquor Liability court’s own description of language resembling Monticello’s as “much more precise,” id., both support the conclusion that the language in the first section is not ambiguous.