Court Opinion

ID: 9718362
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:21:39.804675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:58.697304
License: Public Domain

Mackenzie, P.J.
In these consolidated cases, Pioneer State Mutual Insurance Company appeals as of right from an order granting summary dispositions for Donald Weekley and for Donald Jameson pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(10). We reverse.
Donald Weekley, who was bom in 1971, brought a tort action alleging that his father, Donald Jameson, repeatedly sexually molested him during the years 1983 to 1986. The complaint sought damages for psychological harm. At the time he assaulted his son, Jameson, who suffered a closed head injury in 1978, was living with his mother, Alberta Jameson. Pioneer was Alberta Jameson’s homeowner’s insurer. Jame-son’s attorney tendered Weekley’s lawsuit to Pioneer to defend under the policy. Pioneer denied coverage and refused to undertake the defense of the matter.
Weekley’s action against Jameson was tried in a bench trial. The court found that Jameson had committed fellatio on his son somewhere between twenty-eight and eighty times between 1980 and 1984, and that Weekley had suffered severe emotional injuries as a result. The court further found that Jameson lacked the mental capacity to control his conduct or to comprehend the effect that his sexual misconduct would have on his son and that he did not intend to injure the youth. Weekley was awarded $150,000 in damages. He then obtained a writ of garnishment against Pioneer.
*37Pioneer subsequently filed a declaratory judgment action seeking a determination that it had no duty to indemnify Donald Jameson. Pioneer’s policy excluded coverage for “bodily injury or property damage which is either expected or intended from the standpoint of the insured.”1 The court concluded that this clause did not preclude coverage for Jameson’s acts and therefore granted summary disposition in favor of Jameson and Weekley. In reaching this result, the court decided that Jameson had inflicted “bodily injury” upon his son, but that it was impossible to infer that he intended to harm the youth because the court in the underlying suit specifically found that he had not intended or expected to do so. The court, however, capped Pioneer’s liability at $100,000, the policy limit for a covered “occurrence,” by treating Jameson’s sexual misconduct as a single occurrence rather than multiple occurrences under the policy.
Although the parties raise a number of issues on appeal, we find one to be determinative. We agree with Pioneer that coverage for Jameson’s acts was excluded under the policy because, assuming that Weekley suffered bodily injury as a result of those acts, the injury was intended by Jameson as a matter of law.
For purposes of civil liability insurance, courts should infer the intent to injure as a matter of law when an adult sexually assaults a child. Fire Ins *38Exchange v Diehl, 450 Mich 678, 689-690; 545 NW2d 602 (1996), and cases cited therein; State Mutual Ins Co v Russell, 185 Mich App 521; 462 NW2d 785 (1990). See also Linebaugh v Berdish, 144 Mich App 750, 762; 376 NW2d 400 (1985), and Auto-Owners Ins Co v Gardipey, 173 Mich App 711, 714-715; 434 NW2d 220 (1988). This inference is not based on contract interpretation, Diehl, supra, p 689, n 3, but on public policy:
Generally, [the] courts reason that the inference of the intent to injure should be applied because the act of child molestation is inherently harmful. B B v Continental Ins Co, 8 F3d 1288, 1293 (CA 8, 1993).
“The [inferred-intent] approach . . . stands for the proposition that a person who sexually manipulates a minor cannot expect his insurer to cover his misconduct and cannot obtain such coverage simply by saying that he did not mean any harm. The courts following the majority approach have concluded that sexual misconduct with a minor is objectively so substantially certain to result in harm to the minor victim, that the perpetrator cannot be allowed to escape society’s determination that he or she is expected to know that. Hence, these courts infer the intent to harm as a matter of law in sexual misconduct liability insurance cases involving minors.” [Id., quoting Whitt v DeLeu, 707 F Supp 1011, 1016 (WD Wis, 1989).] [Diehl, supra, pp 689-690, n 4.]
We are of the opinion that the intent to injure should also be inferred as a matter of law where, as here, an adult with a diminished mental capacity sexually assaults a minor. Under the inferred-intent approach adopted by our Supreme Court in Diehl, supra, where the victim of an adult’s sexual misconduct is a minor, the actor’s capacity to know the wrongfulness of his acts is immaterial, and it is also immaterial that the actual injury caused is of a differ*39ent character or magnitude from that intended. Whitt, supra, p 1015. See also Fire Ins Exchange v Abbott, 204 Cal App 3d 1012; 251 Cal Rptr 620 (1988); Allstate Ins Co v Jarvis, 195 Ga App 335; 393 SE2d 489 (1990). Prior cases of this Court are in accord. In Russell, supra, pp 527-528, for example, this Court held the insured child molester’s “characterization of his acts as impulsive and the product of an illness to be of no moment,” because the characterization did “not detract from the inference of harmful intent.” Similarly, in Gardipey, supra, p 712, a blood disorder had “progressively affected [the abuser’s] mental capacity and ha[d] caused significant changes in his character.” This Court nevertheless concluded that the inference, that as a matter of law child sexual abuse by an adult involves an intent to injure, remained applicable.
In this case, no one asserts that Jameson was unaware of the nature of his conduct at the time he sexually abused Weekley. As a matter of law, his intent to injure will be inferred, Diehl, supra, and the trial court’s finding of mental infirmity does not affect that inference, Whitt, supra. Compare Miller v Farm Bureau Mutual Ins Co, 218 Mich App 221; 553 NW2d 371 (1996); Auto-Owners Ins Co v Churchman, 440 Mich 560; 489 NW2d 431 (1992). As noted in Diehl, supra, p 689, n 4, quoting B B v Continental Ins Co, supra, an adult who sexually abuses a minor cannot obtain insurance coverage “simply by saying that he did not mean any harm.” Accordingly, we reverse the order of the trial court requiring Pioneer to indemnify Jameson.
Weekley argues that, by failing to raise the issue in its letter to Jameson denying coverage, Pioneer *40waived the contention that the intent to injure must be inferred as a matter of law. We disagree. It is true that where a liability insurer notifies an insured of denial of coverage on a specific basis, the insurer may be estopped from alleging additional bases for noncoverage at a later time. Lee v Evergreen Regency Cooperative, 151 Mich App 281, 285; 390 NW2d 183 (1986). However, the rule is inapplicable to the circumstances of this case because it may not be used to create liability contrary to the express provisions of the parties’ contract. Id., pp 285-288. Here, Pioneer did not insure against the intentional acts of its insured. An insurer should not be required by waiver and estoppel to pay a loss for which it charged no premium. Id. Moreover, under St Paul Ins Co v Bischoff, 150 Mich App 609, 613; 389 NW2d 443 (1986), Pioneer did not abandon the issue of Jameson’s inferred intent to harm Weekley by failing to reserve its rights to contest coverage.
Our disposition of the above issues makes it unnecessary to address the parties’ remaining claims.
Reversed.
Saad, J., concurred.

 A prior policy issued by Pioneer in effect from December 11, 1978, to December 11, 1981, did not contain an intentional-acts exclusion. However, as noted by the trial court, because Weekley’s complaint in the underlying tort action alleged that Jameson’s sexual assaults began in 1983, Pioneer was not put on notice that there may have been an occurrence covered by the 1978-1981 policy. Accordingly, Pioneer had no duty to defend or indemnify under that policy.