Posted On: February 23, 2006, 1:23 pm CST

Posted By: Chris

As I read the article, the court ruled that the parents have a separate negligence exposure for not taking away the gun, and/or not alerting mental health authorities to their son's condition. Based upon that analysis, and assuming that the failure to take away the gun, etc., was not intentional, then under the HO policy as I understand it, there would be coverage for the parents if the jury finds them negligent, and that the negligence was a proximate/contributing cause. Distasteful, I agree; but, a valid interpretation.

However, if that is the basis for the exposure, and thus the coverage, then I believe that the Court erred in deciding this was six separate events, because the shootings aren't the covered event, the parent's failure to act is, and that is one event. The Court appears to be mixing apples with oranges in an attempt to not just find coverage, but find enough coverage. I hope that Donegal seeks a re-hearing on the number of events ruling.