Court Opinion

ID: 9796143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:50:12.741777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:48:20.137078
License: Public Domain

Rose, L, with whom Shearing, C. L,
agrees, dissenting:
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that an insured’s intoxication should not be considered in determining whether he acted intentionally. Additionally, I do not believe that this court’s holding in Mallin v. Farmers Insurance Exchange1 requires us now to dismiss the possibility that intoxication may vitiate intent. Indeed, in Mallín, this court observed that ‘ ‘there is certainly a possibility that some kinds of circumstances could, in certain cases lead to the conclusion that a person was suffering from such a mental disorder as to be incapable of forming the intent to kill.”21 believe that intoxication may present such a circumstance.
Several courts have held that intoxication may negate an insured’s intent.3 These courts have based their decisions on public policy considerations, namely:
*29With respect to voluntary intoxication, the public policy considerations applicable to a criminal prosecution are not decisive as to liability insurance coverage. In criminal matters there is reason to deal cautiously with a plea of intoxication, and this [sic] to protect the innocent from attack by drunken men. . . .
But other values are involved in the insurance controversy. The exclusion of intentional injury from coverage stems from a fear that an individual might be encouraged to inflict injury intentionally if he was assured against the dollar consequences. Pulling the other way is the public interest that the victim be compensated, and the victim’s rights being derivative from the insured’s, the victim is aided by the narrowest view of the policy exclusion consistent with the purpose of not encouraging an intentional attack. And the insured, in his own right, is also entitled to the maximum protection consistent with the public purpose the exclusion is intended to serve.4
I agree with the policy behind allowing an insured to argue that intoxication vitiated his intent. Based on the facts presented in this case, the question of whether Beckwith’s intoxication vitiated his intent should be a factor for the trier of fact to consider when determining whether State Farm has a duty to defend and indemnify Beckwith.5 Accordingly, I would reverse the district court’s order granting summary judgment in State Farm’s favor.

 108 Nev. 788, 839 P.2d 105 (1992).

 Id. at 793-94, 839 P.2d at 108.

 See, e.g., Republic Ins. Co. v. Feidler, 875 P.2d 187, 192 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1993) (observing that a voluntarily intoxicated insured may lack the mental capacity to form the intent required to invoke a policy exclusion for intentional acts of the insured); State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Morgan, 364 S.E.2d 62, 64 (Ga. Ct. App. 1987) (same); Allstate Ins. Co. v. Carioto, 551 N.E.2d 382, 389 (Ill. Ct. App. 1990) (same); Hanover Ins. Co. v. Talhouni, 604 N.E.2d *29689, 692 (Mass. 1992) (same); Safeco Ins. Co. v. McGrath, 817 P.2d 861, 864 (Wash. Ct. App. 1991) (same); Morris v. Farmers Ins. Exchange, 771 P.2d 1206, 1215 (Wyo. 1989) (same).

 Burd v. Sussex Mutual Insurance Company, 267 A.2d 7, 15 (N.J. 1970) (citations omitted).

 See McGrath, 817 P.2d at 864 (concluding that whether an insured may be so intoxicated as to be unable to form an intent to commit an act is a question for the trier of fact).