Texas Supreme Court Considers Auto Policy Exclusions Case

The Texas Supreme Court must decide if an Ohio insurance company should pay in the case of a boy injured by a driver who was speeding away from police.

Richard Gibbons was evading San Marcos, Texas, police in 1999 when his pickup truck smashed into Greg and Maribel Tanner’s car at an intersection. The wreck left 7-year-old Roney Tanner in a coma for a week, hospitalized for a month, and in physical therapy for five years.

The Tanners hoped Gibbons’ $300,000 policy through Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide Insurance would pay for their son’s medical bills. But the company refused to pay the Tanners, saying Gibbons violated his insurance contract when he led police on a chase that was foreseeable to end in a wreck.

Gibbons had been speeding at about 100 mph, crossed into oncoming traffic, raced through stop signs and fishtailed around corners during the chase, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

So far, two courts have sided with Nationwide.

At issue is how to interpret Gibbons’ insurance policy, which included a standard intentional acts exclusion. The clause voids coverage if the driver deliberately caused an accident.

Gibbons bought his policy in Ohio, a state that has a wider definition of “intentional” than Texas. Ohio’s exclusion voids coverage for “willful acts” that the driver “ought to know” will result in an accident.

Nationwide contends Gibbons should have known that disregarding traffic signals and signs during a police chase would eventually lead to a serious accident.

“You had someone going 80, 90, 100 miles per hour through residential areas, business areas, commercial areas,” Nationwide attorney Chris Heinemeyer told the court during oral arguments in October.

The Tanners’ lawyer, Don Cotton, argued that the accident was not inevitable. Gibbons’ pickup hit the Tanner’s car on a lightly traveled road surrounded by farmland. Police reported that Gibbons hit his vehicle’s brakes in an attempt to avoid hitting the Tanners.

“It is nonsensical to say that somebody intentionally caused harm when the only evidence in the record is that he was trying to avoid causing that harm,” Cotton told the nine justices. “The test is not reckless (acts). The test is ‘intentional.”‘

The state Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision next year.

Information from the Austin American-Statesman

Topics Texas Auto Ohio Law Enforcement