A Munich Re-unit does not have to indemnify a bar and its owner for negligence resulting from a bar employee’s attack on the lounge car park as its policy excludes attacks and battery, a federal appeals court said on Tuesday, confirming a lower court ruling.
Michael Andrews was attacked by an employee of the Tool Shed Lounge in Kansas City, Missouri, in August 2012 by a bar employee, according to the judgment of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. Louis i Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Michael L. Andres; Ray A. Perrin; RAJJ Entertainment Inc., does business as a Tool Shed Lounge.
Mr Andrews filed a negligence case in the state court against the bar̵
7;s owner, Mr. Andrews. Perrin, and the company that owned the bar, RAJJ Entertainment. A jury found both RAJJ and Mr. Perrin charged and ordered them to pay $ 97,500 each, according to the verdict.RAJJ and Mr. Perrin’s insurer, the Munich Re entity Great Lakes, brought an action before the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Missouri, seeking a declaratory judgment. Its insurance policy did not require them to reimburse them because Mr. Andrew’s injuries were excluded from its coverage. .
The district court ruled in favor of the insurer and was upheld by a unanimous three-judge in the appellate court. The coverage’s exclusion of attacks and batteries applies to the amount of damages, said a court panel with three judges.
The measure that occurred “undeniably fit the policy’s definitions of assault, battery and physical riot” and the jury’s ruling indicates that it agreed, the verdict said. “Therefore, the” relevant evidence presented at the trial “confirms the exclusion of coverage,” it said, in an earlier case.
The verdict said that RAJJ and Mr. Perrin claims that even if the abuse-and-battery exclusion applies, their negligence is counted as a separate, covered cause according to the rule of simultaneous-related parties.
This rule stipulates that when an insured risk and an excluded risk are the simultaneous, immediate cause of an accident, a liability insurer is liable as long as one of the causes is covered by the insurance, the ruling said.
That rule does not apply here because RAJJ and Mr. Perrin’s negligence is not a covered cause, the panel said, when they confirmed the lower court’s decision.
Lawyers in the case did not respond to requests for comment.
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