Insurers Escape Coverage for Parents Accused of Hiding Son’s Murder Weapon

A Pennsylvania husband and wife are not covered by their homeowners or personal umbrella insurance policies for claims they inflicted emotional distress by hiding the gun their son used to kill a friend and thus delaying discovery of the victim’s body.

A federal appeals court has upheld the dismissal of coverage claims brought by Kimberley and Howard Rosenberg against Chubb Indemnity Insurance Co. and Hudson Insurance Co.

The courts agreed that coverage was not triggered because the parents’ behavior was not an accident and also because criminal acts are not covered by insurance.

After their adult son shot and killed his 22-year-old former classmate Christian Moore-Rouse at their house, the couple allegedly delayed discovery of the murder weapon and the victim’s body. Based on that delay, the victim’s mother sued the homeowners for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The homeowners then sought defense representation under two of their insurance policies – their Chubb homeowner’s policy and their Hudson personal umbrella policy. Both policies imposed a duty on the insurers to defend the insureds against claims related to “accidents,” though the two polices used different language to describe the accidents that would trigger coverage.

Both insurance companies denied coverage. Homeowner’s insurer Chubb denied coverage on several grounds, including that the claim against the homeowners related to intentional behavior and not to an accident. Umbrella insurer Hudson likewise denied coverage on that basis as well as several other grounds, including that an insurer’s promise to defend an insured for criminal acts is contrary to public policy and thus unenforceable under Pennsylvania law.

The Rosenbergs challenged the denials of coverage by both insurers in federal district court, which after hearings rejected the Rosenbergs’ claims and upheld the insurers’ denial-of-coverage decisions. The Rosenbergs appealed that opinion and now the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Background

On December 21, 2019, while at his parents’ house, Adam Rosenberg shot Christian Moore-Rouse in the back of the head with a handgun. Adam then dragged Christian’s body across the road in front of his parents’ home and left it in a wooded park.

It took over two months for the police to find Christian’s body. The handgun turned up a month after Christian’s killing, having been turned in by a woman who happened to be the Rosenbergs’ marriage counselor who told police she found it along a trail in a public park. Over a month after receiving the handgun, detectives found Christian’s body. They later learned that the weapon used to kill Christian was already in police custody.

Based on the delayed discovery of her son’s body, Christian’s mother, T. Lee Rouse, sued the Rosenbergs in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. Her complaint alleged that in the time between Christian’s disappearance and the recovery of his remains, she felt “the natural fear and severe emotional distress a mother emotionally close to her young adult son would experience during that period of time.” She blamed the Rosenbergs for the delay in finding Christian’s body, and she pursued tort claims for the intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Policy Language

Both policies provided duty-to-defend coverage for “occurrences” and both defined “occurrence” through use of the term “accident.” The Chubb homeowner’s policy defined “occurrence” as “an accident which begins within the policy period resulting in bodily injury, shock, mental anguish, mental injury, or property damage.”

The Hudson umbrella policy likewise used the term “accident” in its definition of “occurrence” but its language also included an unexpected- or-unintended injury clause, such that an occurrence referred to “an accident or accidental event, including continuous or repeated exposure to conditions, which results in bodily injury or property damage neither expected nor intended from the standpoint of the insured.” Neither policy specifically defined the term accident.

After both insurers denied coverage, the Rosenbergs sought declaratory judgments that the insurers had duties to defend them against Rouse’s suit, and they also brought breach-of-contract claims against the insurers.

In granting judgment in favor of Chubb and Hudson, the district court explained that the coverage denials were justified because the factual allegations in Rouse’s complaint could not “be described as fortuitous or accidental,” and thus were not ‘accidents’ within the meaning of the policies.

Criminal Acts

Alternatively, the district court reasoned that even if either insurer had a duty to defend, it would not be enforceable because Pennsylvania law forbids, as contrary to public policy, insuring criminal acts. Also, the court noted, concealing evidence of a crime in Pennsylvania renders one an accessory after the fact, and it is also a crime to conspire to hinder a prosecution.

The Rosenbergs appealed to the Third Circuit, which first found that the Rouse complaint did not trigger Chubb’s duty to defend because the injuries alleged did not result from an accident. Although the policy itself does not define accident, Pennsylvania courts have defined that term as meaning “the culmination of forces working without design, coordination or plan,” prompted by some “degree of fortuity.” The appeals court found that the allegations against the Rosenbergs did not involve such chance. Rather, Rouse alleged that they acted intentionally by concealing the handgun that would have implicated their son and led to the earlier discovery of Christian’s body. Accordingly, the district court did not err in rejecting the Rosenbergs’ claims for coverage under their homeowner’s policy with Chubb.

The appeals court also concluded that it need not further address whether coverage for a criminal act would be inconsistent with public policy because in their appeal, the Rosenbergs did not develop an argument to contest that part of the ruling by the lower court.

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