Court Opinion

ID: 9768627
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:12:48.672307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:42.648159
License: Public Domain

Conley Byrd, Justice. The sole issue on this appeal by Continental Insurance Company is whether, under the terms of a liability insurance policy, it is obligated to defend appellees David A. Hodges and Kaneaster Hodges, Jr. in an action brought against them for allegedly casting surface water upon their neighbor’s property. The policy provides: “The company will pay on behalf of the insured all sums which the insured shall become legally obligated to pay as damages because of A. bodily injury or B. property damage to which this insurance applies, caused by an occurrence, ...” The word “occurrence” is defined in the policy as: “An accident . . . which results ... in property damage neither expected nor intended from the standpoint of the insured.” The chancery court action brought by Glen Odgien, et al, against appellees alleges that the appellees, and/or their tenants, have improved their property so as to greatly increase the total volume of surface water thereon by pumping water from beneath the surface for rice production; that this water was drained into a small drainage ditch crossing appellees’ land thereby casting the water in a body upon the lands belonging to Odgien, et al; that substantial damage was done to the growing crops of Odgien, et al; and that damages and a temporary injunction should be granted. The term “accident” is not defined in the policy, but as pointed out in 44 Am. Jur. 2d Insurance § 1219 (1969), “The definition that has usually been adopted by the courts is that an accident is an event that takes place without one’s foresight or expectation — an event that proceeds from an unknown cause, or is an unusual effect of a known cause, and therefore not expected.” The cases relied upon by appellees generally support this statement. See City of Kimball v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 190 Neb. 152, 206 N.W. 2d 632 (1973), Otterman v. Union Mutual Fire Ins. Co., 130 Vt. 636, 298 A. 2d 547 (1972), and Cross v. Zurich General Accident & Liability Ins. Co., 184 F. 2d 609 (7th Cir. 1950). In the City of Kimball case, supra, by a vote of 4 to 3 the Nebraska Court upheld a finding that an accident was involved where the seepage of the sewage from the city’s lagoon occurred because of the negligence of the city’s employees in failing to discover some seismograph holes before the lagoon was built. Of course, under the complaint filed against appellees by Odglen no negligence is charged or suggested. In the case of Otterman v. Union Mutual Fire Ins. Co., supra, one Kennedy, a man with a history of mental illness, during a tantrum, fired a shot into a dark room that passed through a wall and struck an officer in the next room. In upholding the trial court’s finding that the shooting was an occurrence under a policy identical to the one before us, the Vermont Court laid much stress upon the findings of the trial court that because of his mental illness Kennedy did not intentionally shoot the officer and that Kennedy did not know that the officer was in the house. The case of Gross v. Zurich General Accident & Liability Ins. Co., supra, involved acid damages to windows that occurred during the cleaning of a building with acid. The undisputed proof showed that the insured used the customary method to protect the windows from the acid but that the damage occurred through the negligence of the insured’s employees in applying the customary method for protecting the windows. In holding that the damage claims were accidental within the terms of the policy, the court said: “The basis for the decision of the trial court was that plaintiffs intentionally used hydrofluoric acid in the solution and failed to take the precaution of covering the windows with grease or heavy paper. But failure to take a proper or effective precaution does not prove intent to damage. Plaintiffs may have been negligent in not keeping sufficient water on the windows, but the very fact that water was applied to each window negatives any idea that plaintiff intended to damage same. And lacking such intent, the damage was accidental, even though caused by negligence.” Under the allegations of Odglen’s complaint against appellees, the damages alleged could not have taken place without foresight or expectation and did not involve any negligence on the part of appellees. Nor can it be said that the damages alleged proceeded from an unknown cause or were an unusual effect of a known cause. Rather the complaint states that appellees, after pumping the water onto their lands for use in irrigating the rice crops, drained it into a ditch crossing their lands and cast it upon the lands of Odglen, et al [inferentially by gravity]. It follows that the trial court erred in holding that the appellees’ conduct constituted “an accident” within any reasonable definition of the word, see Proctor Seed & Feed Co. v. Hartford Ins., 253 Ark. 1105, 491 S.W. 2d 62 (1973). Reversed and dismissed. Harris, C.J., dissents.