Court Opinion

ID: 9705732
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:18:23.803975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:14.481191
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, CHIEF JUSTICE
¶ 16. (concurring). The determinative issue according to the majority opinion is the meaning of 1985 Wis. Act 340, § 75(14). Neither party raised or argued this provision in its briefs to this court. Although the majority opinion sets forth a reasonable interpretation of § 75(14), I would have preferred that the court give the parties an opportunity to brief the issue of the applicability of § 75(14).
*298¶ 17. The majority opinion relies on the definition of occurrence in "most insurance policies" to define the word "occurrence" as used in the 1985 Act. I have doubts whether definitions of occurrence in insurance policies are helpful in interpreting the initial applicability provisions of the Act. In any event, the majority appears to believe that most insurance contracts define "occurrence" as a single event or accident that causes harm and triggers the application of the statute.
¶ 18. Yet in a case cited by the majority opinion the insurance policy defines "occurrence" to mean "an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to conditions, which results in bodily injury or property damage neither expected nor intended from the standpoint of the insured." Kremers-Urban Co. v. American Employers Ins., 119 Wis. 2d 722, 731, 739, 351 N.W.2d 156 (1984); see also the insurance policies appearing in 1 Miller's Standard Insurance Policies Annotated passim (4th ed. 1995).
¶ 19. Here, Snopek alleged that the defendants negligently failed in their 1979 treatment to identify a foreign object in her right knee and that the continuing presence of that foreign object caused her intermittent pain, swelling and weakness until the object was discovered in 1995 during arthroscopic surgery. These allegations indicate the possibility of an occurrence of the "continuous or repeated exposure" variety, rather than a single event or accident.
¶ 20. For the reasons set forth, I concur.
¶ 21. I am authorized to state that Justice Ann Walsh Bradley joins this concurrence.