A U.S. Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court’s judgement to
Allstate Insurance, requiring the insurer to defend a woman whose estranged husband shot a gentlemen caller whom he suspected was having an affair with his wife.
Bobby Roberts fired several shots at Sinatra Miller at his then wife’s house in Villa Rica, Georgia, one night in 2013, according to the Daily Report. Initial court filings said that Roberts’ act was done on purpose: “The two men were touching distance apart, and Bobby fired straight from his hip. There is no dispute that Bobby intentionally fired the gun and no claim that the gun accidentally discharged.”
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has ruled that – from the perspective of Roberts’ now ex-wife Kim Roberts, who held an insurance policy on the house – Miller’s shooting constitutes an unforeseen “accident.”
The ruling is a reversal of a trial court’s grant of summary judgment to Allstate Insurance, which contested that the shooting was a deliberate criminal act that cleared it of responsibility to defend a civil suit that Miller and his wife filed against the Roberts, or from any potential judgment.
That suit, filed by Graylin Ward in Carroll County Superior Court, featured aggravated assault, premises liability and loss of consortium claims.
Miller’s medical bills exceed a half-million dollars, while Kim Roberts has a $300,000 policy limit, a declaratory judgment action filed by Allstate in 2014 said.
According to court filings, Bobby Roberts apparently launched a business in Alabama around 2009 and occasionally returned to the Villa Rica house where his wife lived. He was suspicious she was having an affair and, at about 10 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2013, he arrived to find Kim and Miller sitting in the kitchen.
Telling the pair not to move, Roberts walked into a bedroom, whereupon Miller made for the front door. Roberts followed him and shot him multiple times with an automatic handgun.
Roberts was charged with aggravated assault, aggravated battery, pointing a handgun at another and family violence. Online records indicate he was sentenced in 2014, but the exact disposition is unclear. The Daily Report was unable to reach Roberts' attorney, Eason, Kennedy & Crawford partner David Crawford.
Carlock Copeland & Stair partner Fred Valz III’s filed declaratory judgment action for Allstate stated that the insurer retained a lawyer to defend Kim Roberts after reserving its right to deny coverage. Among its arguments was that her policy catered coverage for an “occurrence” resulting in bodily injury, defined as “an accident . . . resulting in bodily injury . . . arising from the ownership, maintenance or use of the residential premises.”
“However, due to the intentional nature of Bobby Roberts’ conduct, the subject incident did not arise from an ‘occurrence,’ as the term unambiguously defined on the policy, and therefore the policy affords no coverage for any damages or claims arising out of or connected to the underlying lawsuit.”
Last year, Timothy Batten, U.S. District Judge, agreed by writing that while the term “accident” I not defined in the policy, “Georgia courts have construed that the term to signify and ‘unintended happening rather than one occurring through intention or design.’”
Batten mentioned two cases where an insured that shot someone was deemed not to have coverage for the incidents. He said that the Millers had argued that the accident involved Bobby’s surprise arrival at Kim’s house, and that “because Bobby’s appearance was unforeseen by Kim and was not with Kim’s foresight, expectation or design, it can and should be considered an ‘accident’ that set into motion the chain of events from which the underlying lawsuit arises.”
He also wrote that the argument “takes too broad a view of causation,” and fails to address the “operative question” of whether the shooting was deliberate.
Judges Beverly martin, Robin Rosenbaum and R. Lanier Anderson have reversed Batten’s summary judgment grant to Allstate was reversed six days ago in an unpublished opinion.
The opinion stated that while neither party provided controlling authority on what Georgia law defines as an “accident,” Georgia case law indicates that the question of whether an event took place unexpectedly “must be asked from the viewpoint of the insured.”
Using a case where a child died on an insured’s property and another in where an elderly woman was attacked in a nursing home, the panel said that Georgia appellate courts in both cases found the fact that an action was intentional did not mean it was not an accident from the policyholder’s perspective.
Valz and Charles McDaniel Jr., Allstate attorneys, did not respond to comment requests.
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