Court Opinion

ID: 9578885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:49:28.223956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:05.137008
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
The homeowner’s policy in Roe v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 188 Ga. App. 368 (373 SE2d 23) (1988), aff’d 259 Ga. 42 (376 SE2d 876) (1989) excluded coverage for bodily injury “expected or intended by the insured.” This related only to the actual expectation or the actual intention of the particular insured whose act caused injury to *338one who sought to hold the insured personally liable for the damages. The Supreme Court recognized a distinction between intent to commit the act and intent to inflict bodily injury. It created a rebuttable, not a conclusive, presumption that the presence of the first carried with it the presence of the second. The sole evidence of intent in that case was “the insured’s own self-serving testimony.” Although subjectivity1 was at issue because of the wording of the policy, this evidence was held insufficient as a matter of law to overcome the presumption and the insurer was relieved of coverage.
Decided April 9, 1990.
Kent & Barrow, R. Stephen Sims, for appellant.
The policy provision in the instant case is not identical. It does not focus alone on the insured’s intent in fact to bodily injure another. It excludes coverage more broadly. Cf. State Farm Fire &c. Co. v. Morgan, 258 Ga. 276 (368 SE2d 509) (1988). Criminal intent itself thus is sufficient to exclude coverage under this policy.
The policy additionally provides that even where the insured did not have, in fact (that is to say, no actual), intent to injure, acts are excluded from coverage if they may “reasonably be expected to result . . . .” The more universal objective test rather than the subjective intent of the insured pertains to this branch of the exclusion.2 The psychologist’s testimony, if it provides evidence of the sort contemplated by the Supreme Court in Roe when it made the presumption rebuttable, does not create an issue of fact as to what may reasonably be expected.
Nor does it address criminal intent which, because of the language of the policy, is relevant in this civil proceeding inasmuch as acts are excluded from coverage in yet a third category: if they are criminal. In this case, the presence of the specific criminal intent required by OCGA § 16-6-4 (a) is admitted by the insured’s plea of guilty to the charges of child molestation.
For these reasons, I concur in the judgment.
*339Penny J. Haas, Charles R. Ashman, Jeffrey W. Lasky, for appellees.

 “Subjective” intent or expectation is meant because the policy states: “expected or intended by the insured.” In this sense, “subjective” means “of, relating to, or being whatever in experience or knowledge is conditioned by merely personal characteristics of mind or by particular states of mind as opposed to what is determined only by the universal conditions of human experience and knowledge; peculiar to a particular individual modified by individual bias and limitations.” Webster’s Third New Intl. Dictionary, Unabridged, pp. 2275-2276.

 “Objective” in this sense is defined as “publicly or intersubjectively observable or verifiable especially by scientific methods; independent of what is personal or private in our apprehension and feelings; of such nature that rational minds agree in holding it real or true or valid.” Webster’s Third New Intl. Dictionary, Unabridged, pp. 1555-1556.