Most liability insurance policies contain an exclusion for injury or property damage “which is expected or intended by” the insured. Plenty of intentional acts (i.e., not shoveling the snow off your sidewalk) can result in unintentional injuries (i.e., someone slips and falls, and is injured).

However, Kentucky recognizes a doctrine in law called “inferred intent,” which holds that some actions are so inherently injurious that there is no possible way that the actor could allege that they did not intend the resulting damage.

In Kentucky, “inferred intent” covers things such as sexual molestation and throwing a punch. The recent decision in Kentucky Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Coyle (click here), solidified the holding of Stone v. Kentucky Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. (a case won by our firm’s senior litigation partner, Guy Colson). These two cases make it clear that in Kentucky, the doctrine of “inferred intent” includes the act of pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger.

In Coyle, the victim (Elliott) was allegedly stalking Coyle’s wife. Needless to say, one day things came to a head, and Coyle and Elliott engaged in a high-speed chase, which ended when Coyle fired two shots into Elliott’s window. In his civil lawsuit, Elliott first sued Coyle for intentional assault. When KFB intervened seeking a judicial declaration of no coverage, Elliott amended his lawsuit to allege that Coyle negligently (not intentionally) fired the weapon at him. This was the only way to trigger the coverage from the KFB policy. As a side note, Coyle later pleaded guilty to first-degree assault, and gave deposition testimony indicating that he intended to fire the gun at Elliott.

Although the trial judge allowed a jury to determine otherwise (Elliott’s trial testimony was contradictory), the Kentucky Court of Appeals found the act of aiming and pointing a gun to carry an inferred intent to cause injury. While “intent” is usually a factual issue, in this case Coyle’s intentional actions were so inherently dangerous that, as a matter of law, they were intended to cause physical harm.