Court Opinion

ID: 9579469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:55:32.443882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:35:32.631943
License: Public Domain

VAUGHN, Chief Judge.
The sole issue is whether the trial court erred in finding that Wilmoth was not covered by the homeowner’s policy for the claims asserted by Sanford Lee Mauldin. An insurance policy is a contract between the parties and is to be construed and enforced in accordance with its terms. Allstate Insurance Co. v. Shelby Mutual Insurance Co., 269 N.C. 341, 152 S.E. 2d 436 (1967). “[I]f the meaning of the policy is clear and only one reasonable interpretation exists, the courts must enforce the contract as written; they may not, under the guise of construing an ambiguous term, rewrite the contract or impose liabilities on the parties not bargained for and found therein.” Woods v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., 295 N.C. 500, 506, 246 S.E. 2d 773, 777 (1978). There is no ambiguity in the sentence “[This policy does not apply] to bodily injury or property damage which is either expected or intended from the standpoint of the insured.” The sentence obviously means that the policy is excluding from coverage bodily injury caused by the insured’s intentional acts, determining whether the act is intentional from the insured’s point of view.
A similar clause in an insurance policy was interpreted by the Fourth Circuit in Stout v. Grain Dealers Mutual Insurance Co., 307 F. 2d 521 (4th Cir. 1962). In Stout, the policy stated: “This coverage does not apply: (c) to injury, sickness, disease, death or destruction caused intentionally by the or at the direction of the insured.” The insured had shot and killed a “peeping Tom” who was looking into his daughter’s window. He was indicted for murder and pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Subsequently, the administratrix of the deceased’s estate brought a wrongful death action against the insured. The insurer refused to defend the suit on the grounds that the death was intentionally inflicted and thus not covered by the policy. The Fourth Circuit agreed, holding that the insured’s acts took him outside the coverage of *464the policy because the insured admitted he intentionally caused decedent’s death when he. pled guilty to voluntary manslaughtér.
In this case, Wilmoth stipulated that he intended to shoot his wife but not Pugh. He pled guilty to second degree murder of Pugh. As in Stout, Wilmoth’s guilty plea to second degree murder removed him from coverage under the policy. Murder in the second degree is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice, but without premeditation and deliberation. State v. Rogers, 299 N.C. 597, 264 S.E. 2d 89 (1980). In discussing the element of intent in second degree murder, our Supreme Court said:
While an intent to kill is not a necessary element of second degree murder, the crime does not exist in the absence of some intentional act sufficient to show malice and which proximately causes death. [Citations omitted] . . . [A]ny act evidencing “wickedness of disposition, hardness of heart, cruelty, recklessness of consequences, and a mind regardless of social duty and deliberately bent on mischief, though there may be no intention to injure a particular person” is sufficient to supply the malice necessary for second degree murder. Such an act will always he accompanied by the general intent to do the act itself but it need not be accompanied by a specific intent to accomplish any particular purpose or do any particular thing. (Emphasis added.)
State v. Wilkerson, 295 N.C. 559, 580-581, 247 S.E. 2d 905, 917 (1978). Wilmoth’s guilty plea to second degree murder was an admission that he had the general intent to do the act, and it excluded him from coverage under the insurance policy.
Additionally, the likelihood of one of the bullets hitting Pugh should have been expected by Wilmoth. To expect is to anticipate that something is probable or certain, Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1969), and Wilmoth obviously knew it was probable that he would hit Pugh when he fired four or five shots into her moving car.
As there is no issue of fact and, for the reasons stated above, plaintiff was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, the trial court’s entry of summary judgment is
Affirmed.
*465Judge HILL concurs.
Judge BECTON concurs and files a concurring opinion.