Court Opinion

ID: 9573089
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:47:43.344755+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:51.312701
License: Public Domain

Young, J.
(dissentingj. I concur fully in the dissenting opinion of Justice WEAVER, but write separately to highlight the import of Justice TAYLOR’S lead opinion: Today, the members of the lead opinion,1 for unarticulated policy reasons of their own, ignore the explicit *300contract language at issue and obliterate the distinction recognized in our law between subjective and objective standards in insurance exclusion provisions.2
In an apparent policy-driven view that even the most fanciful beliefs merit insurance coverage, the standard articulated by the lead opinion conflates any meaningful distinction between a subjective and objective contractual standard. The lead opinion cites no precedent or other legal authority for its position. There is none. The new alleged “objective standard” announced in the lead opinion today leaves an insurer unable to exclude even the most dangerous intentional or criminal behavior from coverage as a matter of law, so long as an insured claims to believe that something innocuous would result from his dangerous conduct.3 The policy language of exclusion at issue here could not more explicitly preclude coverage for the intentional or criminal conduct of an insured. I believe it to be the view of those joining the lead opinion that it would violate an as yet unarticulated “public policy” if an insurer could by contract preclude coverage under the facts of this case. Indeed, the lead opinion (and its bastardization of the *301traditional objective standard that should be applied here) seems driven by its concern that “an intentional or criminal act... will almost never be covered by a policy with this exclusion.” My response is that I am prepared to enforce the contract the parties have made as written.4
Insurance contracts generally provide indemnity against injuries caused by “accidents.” When they expressly exclude coverage for injuries caused by intentional or criminal behavior as determined by a “reasonable person” objective standard, I am prepared to apply the traditional, unvarnished objective standard Michigan courts have employed in assessing whether the injury was “reasonably expected. ”
The intentional or criminal acts exclusion of the policy at issue precludes coverage for injuries or damage “which may reasonably be expected to result” from the intentional or criminal acts or omissions of an insured. For time out of mind until now, common law courts have understood the distinction between subjective and objective standards.5 An objective test assesses what a reasonable person would have believed, while a subjective test is concerned about determining what the *302actual actor believed. In this context, where all members of this Court agree the contract requires application of an objective standard, I contend that what may “reasonably be expected to result” from an insured’s acts is the conclusion a reasonable person reaches after examining all of the pertinent information available to the insured. See footnote 5. The belief of the insured, on the other hand, is the subjective conclusion reached by the insured armed with the same information. While the belief of the insured may be a fact, it is not an *303ultimate fact6 essential to determining what may reasonably be expected to result from an insured’s actions.
The lead opinion errs in using the insured’s subjective belief (purportedly) “as a starting point,” then insisting that the “objective” evaluation proceed by determining whether a reasonable person, sharing the insured’s subjective belief, would expect the same result. Requiring that the reasonable person take as a determinative fact the insured’s subjective beliefs about his acts violates every known formulation or application of the traditional objective standard. The majority cites no authority for its contrary and idiosyncratic formulation of its “objective” standard. It is noteworthy that, in other contexts, this Court has expressly repudiated similar efforts to make subjective an objective standard.7
Thus, it is unclear why (and on what authority) the lead opinion concludes that a reasonable person should be required to possess the same (and entirely subjective) belief as the insured.
As I argued in McCarn I, a reasonable person could certainly come to a different belief regarding the expected consequences under the known and undisputed facts of this case.8 Under the standard announced by *304the lead opinion, I cannot envision a single scenario where a “reasonable person” expectation could ever diverge from the insured’s expectation.9 More critically, I am at a loss to determine any difference, much less a qualitative one, between the purported objective standard articulated in the lead opinion today and the policy exclusion language found to require a subjective determination in Metropolitan Ins v DiCicco.10 There, a policy which excluded damage “expected or intended from the standpoint of the insured” was found to require a subjective standard of expectation.11
I note that, had the views of the lead opinion garnered majority support, the subjective standard would have become the uniform standard for all insurance policies, no matter what language was actually used. Under the standard articulated by the lead opinion, an insurance company would be required to provide coverage even where, for example, an insured believes that his gun was magical and would only play “The Star Spangled Banner” when the trigger was pulled. After all, using the insured’s claimed belief as a starting point, no reasonable person would expect that bodily harm would result from a rousing rendition of our national anthem.12 I *305invite those justices joining the lead opinion to explain why its analysis today would permit a contrary result.
For these reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Corrigan, C.J., concurred with Young, J.

 I can only hope that this departure from the general principle that contracts are to be enforced as written is a limited one that will not recur. Compare, Wilkie v Auto-Owners Ins Co, 469 Mich 41, 51; 664 NW2d 776 (2003), wherein this Court reinforced the “bedrock principle of American contract law that parties are free to contract as they see fit, and the courts are to enforce the agreement as written absent some highly unusual circumstance, such as a contract in violation of law or public policy.”

 I do not believe that it is possible for Allstate to disprove Robert’s claimed beliefs regarding the status of the gun. Allstate could prove that the belief was not reasonable under the circumstances, but I am unsure how they could prove that the belief did not in fact exist. Moreover, the evidence does not support a finding that Allstate conceded that Robert thought the gun was unloaded. At most, Allstate merely agreed that Robert said he believed the gun to be unloaded. Conceding that Robert made a statement and conceding that his statement was true are entirely different matters.

 The lead opinion, suggests that I conclude that an intentional or criminal act “will almost never he covered under a policy with this exclusion”. I do not. I do believe that each case will turn on its facts and that what is “reasonable” may have to be determined by a trier of fact. I am agnostic regarding whether all, a majority or no cases involving a criminal act are covered under policy language at issue here so long as the policy language is given meaning. I will not, as the lead opinion does, ignore the contract language and “direct the verdict” as a matter of law by manipulating the traditional objective standard of review.

 For an example of how we have consistently described the reasonable person objective standard in Michigan, Radtke v Everett, 442 Mich 368, 390-391; 501 NW2d 155 (1993), describes the standard as follows:
As described by Dean Prosser, the reasonable person standard has been carefully crafted to formulate one standard of conduct for society:
*302“The standard of conduct which the community demands must be an external and objective one, rather than the individual judgment, good or bad, of the particular actor; and it must be, so far as possible, the same for all persons, since the law can have no favorites.
“The courts have gone to unusual pains to emphasize the abstract and hypothetical character of this mythical person. He is not to be identified with any ordinary individual, who might occasionally do unreasonable things; he is a prudent and careful person, who is always up to standard. ... He is rather a personification of a community ideal of reasonable behavior, determined by the jury’s social judgment.”
The “chief advantage of this standard” is that it enables triers of fact “to look to a community standard rather than an individual one, and at the same time to express their judgment of what that standard is in terms of the conduct of a human being.”
Furthermore, the reasonable person standard examines the totality of the circumstances to ensure a fair result. Hence, the reasonable person standard is sufficiently flexible to incorporate gender as one factor, without destroying the vital stability provided by uniform standards of conduct. [Emphasis added; internal citations omitted.]
Justice Taylor approvingly cited to this passage in his concurring statement in Sidorowicz v Chicken Shack, Inc, 469 Mich 912; 673 NW2d 106 (2003). Thus, his position in the present case is hard to reconcile with his previous position regarding the correct application of the objective reasonable person standard.

 Black’s Law Dictionary defines ultimate facts as those “facts essential to the right of action or matter of defense; facts necessary and essential for decision hy court.”

 See Radtke v Everett, 442 Mich 368; 501 NW2d 155 (1993).

 It is important to recall that all of the facts and circumstances known about this shooting were provided by McCarn’s deposition testimony. McCarn owned the shotgun and admitted that he did not check to see whether the gun was loaded before he deliberately pulled the trigger when the barrel of the gun was one foot away from his friend’s face. He also admitted to being the last person to use the gun, and could not recall whether he unloaded the gun on that occasion because he put the gun away “hot” — hurriedly in order to avoid being caught using the weapon without adult supervision. He further admitted to intentionally pulling the *304trigger of the gun in an effort to frighten the victim into sharing crackers. According to the lead opinion, none of these undisputed facts provided by McCarn himself are relevant in evaluating how a reasonable person would have assessed the circumstances of the shooting because it concludes that the only relevant fact is the insured’s stated subjective belief that his gun was unloaded.

 Indeed, the lead opinion incentivizes insureds to manufacture their “beliefs” about insurance controversies because, no matter how incompatible with the circumstances or logic, the insured’s belief is the one that must be assumed by the “reasonable person” when applying the lead opinion’s so-called “objective” test.

 432 Mich 656; 443 NW2d 734 (1989).

 Id., 672. Had the policy language in this case been similar to that found in DiCicco, I might agree with the lead opinion’s resolution.

 The majority disclaims that its new objective test is anything novel and that all it is doing is drawing a “line . . . between what the insured *305believed at the point of the intentional or criminal act and applied to that behef what a reasonable person could expect to result from that act.” Ante at 292-293 (emphasis added). In actuality, the lead opinion is not considering what a reasonable person would expect to result from the insured’s act, but the insured’s stated subjective belief about the consequences of his act. This is the “Russian Roulette” theory of objective standards: “if I think the bullet is in another chamber, I’m covered.”
Consequently, I see nothing inconsistent with my hypothetical example (using an insured’s absurd belief that his gun would play the national anthem when discharged as a basis for recovery under this policy) and the lead opinion’s application of its so-called objective standard to the known facts of this case. Id. And the lead opinion is especially hard pressed to explain why an insured’s absurd beliefs should not be given absolute credence when it applies its version of the objective standard when the insured says he thought the gun was inoperable, unloaded, or simply magical.