This story is reprinted with permission from FC&&S Legal, the industry’s only comprehensive digital resource designed for insurance coverage law professionals. Visit the website to subscribe.
A federal district court in South Carolina has ruled that a homeowner’s insurance policy did not cover a claim that the insured’s negligence had led to her dog biting a neighbor’s daughter.
|Dog attack
A dog owned by Victoria Rogers allegedly bit Shanna Norwood’s daughter while she was at Rogers’ home, inflicting facial injuries requiring emergency medical treatment.
Related: 12 factors impacting dog bite claims
Norwood sued Rogers, asserting claims for negligence and strict premises liability and seeking indeterminate actual and punitive damages.
Rogers’ homeowner’s insurer, Lighthouse Property Insurance Corporation, defended Rogers in Norwood’s suit under a full reservation of rights.
|No obligation to defend or indemnify
Lighthouse then filed an action seeking a declaration that it had no obligation to defend or indemnify Rogers in Norwood’s action, relying on the policy’s “dog” exclusion.
Lighthouse moved for summary judgment.
|Dog exclusion
The dog exclusion in the Lighthouse policy excluded coverage for:
“Bodily injury” or “property damage” caused by any dog ... owned or kept, including temporary supervision, by you or any insured, resident, tenant or guest whether or not the injury occurs on your premises or any other location.
The district court granted the motion.
|Exclusion applied to claims
In its decision, the district court found that the dog exclusion in the Lighthouse policy was “not ambiguous, conflicting, or capable of multiple reasonable interpretations.” In the district court’s view, the only reasonable conclusion was that the exclusion applied to claims against Rogers arising from the dog attack on Norwood’s child.
The district court rejected Rogers’ argument that summary judgment was not appropriate because Norwood’s daughter’s injuries had not been caused solely by Rogers’ dog but also by Rogers’ failure to maintain control over the dog, and the exclusion did not exclude coverage for losses caused by the negligence of Rogers.
|Duty to control dog
The district court found that argument “illogical.” It reasoned that a dog had “no liability in tort, so a dog bite exclusion from liability coverage necessarily refer[red] to the conduct of the person responsible for the dog.”
Rogers had a duty to control her dog and, for that reason, she was potentially liable for damages caused by her dog, the district court said. Rogers’ argument that a policy exclusion for dog bites simply meant that the dog itself was not an insured party was “not a reasonable interpretation of the exclusion,” the district court concluded.
The case is Lighthouse Property Ins. Corp. v. Rogers, No. 9: 17-1553-RMG (D.S.C. Jan. 19, 2018).
Steven A. Meyerowitz, Esq., ([email protected]) is the director of FC&S Legal, the editor-in-chief of the Insurance Coverage Law Report, and the founder and president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc. This story is reprinted with permission from FC&S Legal, the industry’s only comprehensive digital resource designed for insurance coverage law.
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