Court Opinion

ID: 9590368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:54:14.071817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:02.969376
License: Public Domain

Beasley, Judge,
concurring specially.
In State Farm Fire &c. Co. v. Morgan, 185 Ga. App. 377 (364 SE2d 62) (1987), I concurred in the judgment only, partially because I did not wholly agree with the statement that “the rule is that insanity is a defense to an intentional tort.” Id. at 380. Insanity may be a defense. It depends on whether the insanity affected the person’s intent-forming capacity on the occasion in question. If there is evidence that the insanity was such as to preclude the forming of intent to do the act complained of, then the jury must decide whether such an intent was present or blocked. If the evidence of intent to do harm is such that it existed in spite of the insanity, then insanity is irrelevant on the issue of intent. This is so even if the insanity is such that it would excuse the actor from criminal responsibility, applying the criminal law standard of insanity. As the Supreme Court summarized in State Farm Fire &c. Co. v. Morgan, 258 Ga. 276 (368 SE2d 509) (1988): “The policy here deals simply with presence of intent or expectation and not with factors contributing to or subtracting from intent or expectation.” (Emphasis supplied.) What caused him to have the intention (or expectation) is not what matters; what matters is whether he had the intention or not. For the same reason, the criminal ramifications of the cause of the intention are irrelevant.
Thus, in the present case, whether the actor could distinguish between right and wrong, or could not resist committing the act, do not create a jury issue, given the unrebutted testimony of the actor that he intended the act and its harmful consequences. The latter is what controls, when the question is whether the bodily injury or property damage for which insurance coverage is sought was “expected or intended by the insured.” The exclusion is not limited to rational intentions.
This case differs from State Farm Fire &c. Co., supra, because there the evidence did not conclusively establish that the insured intended or expected injury as a consequence of his act. Here it does. Cf. Roe v. State Farm &c. Cas. Co., 188 Ga. App. 368 (373 SE2d 23) (1988).
*545Decided September 9, 1988
Rehearing denied September 23, 1988
F. Thomas Young, Daniel C. Hoffman, for appellant.
J. Converse Bright, Richard J. Joseph, William S. Perry, George T. Talley, for appellees.