Posted On: February 24, 2006, 9:27 pm CST

Posted By: Othello Orson

Chris,

Notwithstanding that the finding of the jury becomes the courts ruling (as the judge is not the court the judge and jury are) it is the duty of the judge to direct the jury on legal interpretation (based on the understanding the average juror will not understand the correct interpretation of a technical document).

If that advice fails then, normally, the judge would have the option of deciding the penalty i.e. if it was obvious the policy should not respond and that there was only one occurrence, not several the judge could hand down a minimal penalty indicating the jury got it wrong.

$300,000 per murder is a declaration that the court (in this case the judge) accepted the jury findings as accurate.

As indicated in the last comment, supporting a decision such as this has significant ramifications outside of the limits of an insurance policy.

If one adult is technically responsible for another (where there is no legal bond i.e. the parents are not liable for the actions of an adult offspring) you could be found negligent for not stopping someone from shooting a teller in a bank if you could see they were armed and dangerous before the teller did.

Sound ludicrous? Well these people probably had less reason to assume their son was about to become mass murderer and they were found negligently responsible.

No doubt the jury considered the insurer was big and the victims small so the insurer could afford to pay, but the simple fact of life is that the insurer will never pay, you, the paying insured, will ultimately pay.