Parker County insurance lawyers will deal with clients who have Farm and Ranch insurance policies. Here is a case that deals with one of those policies. It is a 2014 case styled, Texas Farm Bureau Underwriters v. Terry Graham, and is out of the Texarkana Court of Appeals. Here is some of the relevant information.
Terry Graham shot and killed would-be burglar, Chambers, at Graham’s ranch house. In successfully defending the resulting wrongful death lawsuit by Chambers’ family members, Graham incurred $130,841.43 in defense costs, which Graham sought to recover from Texas Farm Bureau Underwriters (Underwriters), the issuer of Graham’s Texas Farm and Ranch Owner’s Insurance Policy. From competing motions for summary judgment, contesting the question of whether Underwriters had the duty to defend Graham in the Chambers lawsuit, the trial court awarded Graham judgment. Underwriters appealed. Because, under the terms of the policy, there was no duty to defend the Chambers lawsuit, this curt reversed the trial court’s judgment and render a take-nothing judgment in favor of Underwriters.
Underwriters filed a legal denial based on the governing “eight corners rule,” which provides that an insurer is entitled to rely solely on the factual allegations contained in the four corners of the complaint in conjunction with the four corners of the liability policy to determine whether it has a duty to defend. In its answer, Underwriters argued that the eight corners rule precluded recovery because (1) the Chambers family’s petition established that the incident was not a covered occurrence and (2) the policy expressly excluded coverage for bodily injury caused by an intentional act of the insured. Underwriters filed a traditional motion for summary judgment on its legal defense. In response, Graham filed a cross-motion for summary judgment, arguing (1) that Underwriters’ duty to defend was established by the jury’s finding of no wrongdoing on Graham’s part and (2) that the policy’s exclusion for intentional acts did not apply to the Chambers family’s allegations of negligence and gross negligence.