Another one in the “what is an accident” category.  As I’ve said elsewhere in this dispatch of CO, this is the number one most important, frequently litigated and challenging issue.  It is the gateway to the policy and relevant to every claim.  Courts have struggled with the issue since at least 1869. 

The beat goes on.  The estate of Elle Migneault filed suit against Imran Iqbal, alleging that he utilized his position as an employee of Sam’s Food Mart to procure illegal drugs and provide them to Elle Migneault, who suffered an overdose and passed away as a result.

The estate also filed suit against Mohammad Iqbal, in his capacity as operator of Sam’s Food Stores, alleging that “he was responsible for hiring Imran Iqbal despite Imran’s previous arrests for drug-related offenses, including possession of a controlled substance while working at Sam’s Food Store and selling tobacco to minors.”  As you would expect, the complaint alleged all kinds of ways in which Mohammad Iqbal failed to prevent the situation, such as improper supervision and failing to maintain and install security, etc. 

No surprise here.  At issue in Acceptance Indemnity Ins. Co. v. Migneault, No. 21-510 (D. Conn. Oct. 31, 2022) was whether the defendants were owed a defense under a liability policy that provided coverage for bodily injury caused by an “occurrence,” defined as an accident, as well as containing an expected or intended exclusion.  The court noted that it was going to address these two aspects of the policy interchangeably.

The court started out with the following observation: “There is no precedent in Connecticut directly addressing whether causing another person's death by providing them with illegal drugs is considered an ‘accident’ for purposes of a liability insurance policy, and courts have varied in their approach to the question of evaluating what kind of negligence may nevertheless be considered intentional rather than an accident.”

Continuing with no real surprises here, the court pointed out two ways in which courts have addressed the accident issue:

“If the conduct is inherently harmful such that an injury is the natural consequence, some Connecticut courts have held that negligent conduct will not be considered an accident even if the harm was not specifically intended. . . . On the other hand, some courts have found negligent actions to be accidents, even when the underlying conduct is intentional, when there is no reason to believe the resulting harm was expected or intended.

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“A distillation of the precedent on this topic leaves the Court with the following principle: death caused by a drug overdose will only be an expected or intended harm if either the provision of drugs is so ‘inherently harmful’ that death by overdose would be a natural consequence, or Imran Iqbal had actual knowledge that the drugs were harmful enough that Elle Migneault might perish as a result of taking them.”

The court concluded that it did have the information necessary to resolve the issue, as there was the “possibility that, for example, Imran ‘did not appreciate the nature of what he was actually selling to Ms. Migneault[.]’  Without details on what kind of drugs Imran provided, in what quantity, and under what circumstances, Plaintiff [insurer] has not met its burden in showing that there are no genuine issues of material fact in dispute.”

After reaching this conclusion for Imran Iqbal, the court easily reached the same one for Mohammad Iqbal, noting that the complaint asserted a theory of negligence and not intentional conduct against him.