Pennsylvania: Murder and the Homeowners Policy

Parents’ negligence for adult son’s murder spree a covered event, says state court

An insurance company can be required to defend policyholders accused of negligence in the aftermath of a deadly shooting spree conducted by their son, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled.

However, the shooting spree that took five lives over several hours at various locations should be considered a single occurrence and not several under the Donegal Mutual Insurance Co. policy’s $300,000 per occurrence limit, the state’s high court also ruled.

The court reasoned that the parents’ alleged negligence was a single occurrence covered by the policy even though multiple deaths and injuries followed.

The high court agreed with lower court rulings that the homeowners insurance policy Donegal issued to Andrejs and Inese Baumhammers was triggered by the actions of their adult son, Richard, a former attorney who was convicted of killing five people and leaving a sixth paralyzed during a rampage in April 2000.

In its split decision written by Justice Cynthia A. Baldwin, the high court affirmed a Superior Court’s decision that an “accident” happened, but reversed the Superior Court’s finding of multiple occurrences, which if it had been upheld could have exposed Donegal to as much as $1.8 million in payments.

The victims alleged that the parents were negligent in their failure to procure adequate mental health treatment for their son; failure to take their son’s handgun away from him; and failure to notify police that he possessed a handgun.

Donegal argued that it had no duty to defend or indemnify Baumhammers or his parents in the civil actions filed against them since the shootings were not accidental but were instead the result of intentional conduct not covered by the policy. Donegal additionally asserted that if, however, Baumhammers or his parents were entitled to have Donegal defend and potentially indemnify them, the shootings were the result of a single “occurrence.”

The high court found that the parents’ negligence resulted in the tragic accidental injuries to the individual plaintiffs, thus Donegal was required to defend them.

It then ruled on the question of the number of occurrences, stating that “the fact that there were multiple victims does not determine the limits of parents’ liability coverage; the number of occurrences does. Although this is a disturbing case with tragic consequences, we are compelled to conclude that parents’ alleged negligence constituted but a single ‘occurrence’ for purposes of coverage under the Donegal insurance policy.”