Court Opinion

ID: 9718363
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:21:39.809532+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:58.698630
License: Public Domain

C. F. Youngblood, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. The trial judge, sitting as the factfinder at trial, found that Donald Jameson lacked the mental capacity to control his conduct or to understand the differences between right and wrong, that he could not comprehend the effect that his sexual conduct would have on his son, and that he did not intend to injury Weekley. This “insanity” was the result of a severe head injury that Jameson suffered in 1978. It would be illogical, unsound, and just plain wrong to hold *41that under the civil law of this state Jameson can be found to have intended his acts in the face of such factual findings.
The majority misreads Fire Ins Exchange v Diehl, 450 Mich 678, 689-690; 545 NW2d 602 (1996). Diehl does not stand for the proposition that just because a person has reached an age sufficient to be termed an “adult,” the person is responsible for the person’s acts regardless of the person’s mental capacity or competency. The Diehl Court states that “where an adult sexually assaults a child” the intent to injure may be inferred as a matter of law. The Court goes on to say that where a child is the assailant, the intent to injure should not be inferred as a matter of law. Id. This would also apply to a person of adult age but with the mentality of a child.
I disagree that the “intent to injure” should be, or can be, inferred as a matter of law where there have been factual findings such as those the trial judge made in this case. This is not just “an adult with a diminished mental capacity.” Here, Jameson was not only “insane” within Michigan’s criminal statutory definition of insanity, but he was of such mental incapacity that he could not intend or expect to cause an injury. This is much more than “simply saying that he did not mean any harm.
This is not contrary to Auto-Owners Ins Co v Churchman, 440 Mich 560; 489 NW2d 431 (1992). In Churchman, the assailant was not being treated for any mental illness or incapacity, and the trial judge made no finding that Mr. Frost (the assailant) did not have the necessary intent to kill. The Court determined:
*42While Mr. Frost may not have been criminally hable for his acts, he was capable of foreseeing their consequences and understanding what he was doing, i.e., ending another human being’s life. [Id. at 568.]
Here, the trial court, after a trial, made the opposite determination and found Jameson did not intend to injure Weekley.
There is no inequity to this result, and no evidence that this would require the insurer to pay for a loss for which it charged no premium. Jameson received a severe head injury in 1978, which caused him to become insane. Unfortunately, people in society are injured sometimes and sometimes these injuries cause mental incapacity and mental illnesses, which can cause some of these mentally impaired people to harm other people. The frequency and certainty of this occurring is an actuarial calculation and a part of the cost of every insurance policy.
In addition, as the Court explained in Diehl, supra at 688 a policyholder reading the intentional-acts exclusion would reasonably expect that a severely mentally incapacitated person in the household would not be judged by an objective adult standard.
I would affirm.