Baker Sterchi obtains declaratory judgment for insurer on alleged concurrent cause claim
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri entered a declaratory judgment for Baker Sterchi’s insurance client, finding no coverage under a homeowners’ insurance policy for claims that the female homeowner sexually abused a minor in the home. The court also found no coverage for claims against the non-offending husband of the abuser, finding that such claims were not a concurrent cause of loss because the theory of liability as to the husband was that he owed a duty to warn of and to control his wife’s “dangerous proclivities” to groom and molest boys. The court found that this alleged duty, if any, was not independent of the excluded cause of loss (the wife’s intentional sexual abuse), and that there was therefore no coverage under the homeowners’ policy.