Rick Larson of Pillsbury & Coleman orchestrated a settlement of a wrongful death suit for payment of the policy limits to the victim’s family by the homeowners insurer of the perpetrator. The insured shot and killed the victim, but lacked the mental capacity to stand for a criminal trial. The insurer relied on a broadly worded exclusion that purported to bar coverage for acts of a “criminal nature” and filed a declaratory relief action seeking a judgment that it had no duty to defend or indemnify the perpetrator. We intervened on behalf of the insured and filed a motion to dismiss or stay which called into question the legality of the wording of the exclusion.
While that motion was pending, the victim’s family made a policy limits demand which was set to expire before the hearing on the motion. We leveraged this policy limits demand and created substantial pressure on the insurance carrier to settle the case. Either the carrier would have to accept the demand or risk having to pay the full wrongful death verdict regardless of its policy limits. Despite the dispute the existed over the coverage, the carrier ultimately decided to pay its full policy limits in settlement and the wrongful death and declaratory relief actions were promptly dismissed.
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