Court Opinion

ID: 9723127
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:03:04.174209+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:44.993117
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). In Metropolitan, I join with Justices Cavanagh, Boyle, and Archer in concluding that the insurer had a duty to defend DiCicco and in affirming the decision of the Court of Appeals reversing the trial court’s decision granting summary disposition to the insurer.
In Allstate, I agree with Justices Cavanagh and Archer that the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the trial court’s summary disposition in favor of Allstate on the issue whether it was under a duty to defend or indemnify Marshall Freeman.
I write separately because there was a genuine issue of material fact on the question whether Alonda Freeman acted intentionally or criminally and, more specifically, whether she shot Mary Helen Kelly in valid or mistaken self-defense.1
i
The lead opinion states in a footnote that the signers "are not persuaded by Alonda Freeman’s characterization that she acted in self-defense”2 and, after reviewing the testimony of Alonda Freeman and Mary Helen Kelly, that the Court of *757Appeals correctly concluded that the trial court properly rejected the claim of self-defense. The lead opinion quotes the statement in the opinion of the Court of Appeals that " 'there is still no dispute that [Freeman] pointed a loaded gun in the direction of Kelly and fired it at close range.’ ”3
Alonda Freeman testified on deposition that Mary Helen Kelly said "[y]ou bitch, I’m tired of y’all fucking with me. I’m going to put an end to it. I’m going to kill you bitch, and your kids. At this point, she leaped off her porch and began coming towards my home. She was still hollering and screaming that she was going to kill me.”
Alonda Freeman further testified that Kelly "kept on coming. At this point, my kids were screaming and hollering. She was still hollering, that she was going to kill us.” Freeman went into a cabinet in her kitchen and removed a gun. Freeman’s "kids were screaming and hollering, even worse. She [Kelly] was coming and she was going to kill us. I could still hear her hollering, she was going to kill us. When I returned back to the door, she was all the way in my walkway, like a foot from my porch. She went to do like this, as if she was going to step on my porch with her foot up and I shot her.”
Freeman said her state of mind was that she was defending herself "[a]nd my children. My everything. As I said, she stated she would kill me and my children.”
In response to the question whether Kelly was armed with any weapon, Freeman said "[w]hen she leaped off her porch, she did have something in her hand. Now, what happened to it, between her house and my house, I lost sight of it, because I was really focusing on one point.” When Kelly *758stepped on the porch, her fists were "balled up, clenched” and she was "[streaming and hollering.” Freeman fired when Kelly was between three and five feet away.
In response to the question whether when she fired she was trying to get away from Kelly, Freeman responded "[m]ore so trying to get away from me. Trying to defend me and my children, to keep her from killing us, which she stated she would do.”
Kelly was hit in the right shoulder. Freeman said she "didn’t intend for it to hit any certain place.”
ii
The inquiry on the motion for summary deposition was not whether the members of this Court would be persuaded by Alonda Freeman’s characterization that she acted in self-defense or even whether, if the justices were sitting as triers of fact, we would be so persuaded, but whether any reasonable juror might be so persuaded. Questions of credibility are, of course, for the jury and not for the court.
There was a genuine issue of material fact on the question whether Alonda Freeman acted in self-defense.
hi
In Transamerica Ins Group v Meere, 143 Ariz 351, 356; 694 P2d 181 (1984), the Supreme Court of Arizona, construing an exception in public liability coverage for injury "which is 'expected or intended’ by the insured,” said that the
principles of contractual "intent” and public policy *759coincide; the provision [the exception from coverage] is designed to prevent an insured from acting wrongfully with the security of knowing that his insurance company will "pay the piper” for the damages. That design is not served by interpreting the provision to exclude coverage in self-defense situations where the insured is not acting by conscious design but is attempting to avoid a "calamity” which has befallen him.
The court continued:
[T]here is evidence from which the finder of fact may decide that Meere was confronted with a risk over which he had little control. His blow may not have been the result of a cognitive process, and his action may not have been "voluntary.” Although his act was intentional, and its natural consequence was to cause injury, his basic desire or purpose may not have been to injure. . . .
Substantial authority supports such an analysis. The Nebraska Supreme Court, after analyzing a number of cases concluded:
"The cases, as evidenced by those already cited, point out that when one acts in self-defense the actor is not generally acting for the purpose of intending any injury to another but, rather, is acting for the purpose of attempting to prevent injury to himself. It can easily be said that such act, though resulting in bodily injury to another, was neither expected nor intended within the terms of the policy .... An injury resulting from an act committed by an insured in self-defense is not, as a matter of law, an expected or intended act. . .”
Allstate Insurance Company v Novak, 210 Neb 184, 192-93; 313 NW2d 636, 640-41 (1981); see also Patrons-Oxford Mutual Insurance Co v Dodge [426 A2d 888 (Me, 1981)]; Farmers Insurance Exchange v Sipple, 255 NW2d 373 (Minn, 1977); Hanover Insurance Group v Cameron, 122 NJ Super 51; 298 *760A2d 715 (1973).[4] [Id., pp 358-359. Emphasis in original.]
IV
Alonda Freeman was convicted following a bench trial of the misdemeanor of discharging a firearm intentionally but without malice resulting in injury.5 There is a substantial body of authority that conviction of the insured of having committed a criminal offense in respect to the incident for which public liability insurance coverage is sought, does not necessarily establish that an injury resulting from commission of the offense was intended or expected by the insured.6

 The question whether an insurer has a duty to defend an insured where the insured acted in self-defense, and, where the insured acted in mistaken self-defense, to indemnify the insured despite policy language excluding injury caused by an intentional or criminal act, is not addressed in the opinions of the justices. The factual disposition by the majority of Alonda Freeman’s claims made it unnecessary for the majority to consider this legal question.

 Ante, p 683, n 20.

 Ante, p 683, n 20.

 In the Nebraska, Maine, and Minnesota cases, the policies excepted injury "which is either expected or intended from the standpoint of the Insured.” In the New Jersey case, the exception was for injury caused "intentionally by or at the direction of the Insured.”

 MCL 750.235; MSA 28.432.

 See anno: Criminal conviction as rendering conduct for which insured convicted within provision of liability insurance policy expressly excluding coverage for damage or injury intended or expected by insured, 35 ALR4th 1063, 1068; Patrons-Oxford Mutual Ins Co v Dodge, 426 A2d 888 (Me, 1981). But see Bay State Ins Co v Wilson, 96 Ill 2d 487; 71 Ill Dec 726; 451 NE2d 880 (1983); State Farm Fire & Casualty Co v Dominguez, 131 Cal App 3d 1; 182 Cal Rptr 109 (1982).