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render them separate “occurrences.”149 In Matty, a motor vehicle accident occurred in which the insured struck a bicyclist and then struck a second bicyclist.150 An accident reconstruction expert testified that it would have taken the driver “just over a second” to travel the 95 to 115 feet between the two bicyclists.151 The Georgia Supreme Court remanded the case to the district court to answer whether “there was but one proximate, uninterrupted, and continuing cause which resulted in all of the injuries and damage.”152 The jury found that there were two “occurrences.”153 The insurer filed a motion for new trial, contending that there was no evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that there were two occurrences.154 The district court denied the motion, finding that a course correction by the driver lasting less than a second could be deemed an intervening cause.155 On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the denial, holding that the course correction could have rendered the second collision a separate “occurrence.”156 A second caveat is that, if an event does not meet all the elements of the governing jurisdiction’s definition of “riot,” each act of vandalism may constitute a separate “occurrence.”157
3. Texas: The Events Test
In contrast to the majority of states, Texas determines the number of “occurrences” based on the number
149 See State Auto Prop. & Cas. Co. v. Matty, 286 Ga. 611, 611, 615, 690 S.E.2d 614 (2010).
150 Id., 286 Ga. at 615.
151 Id. at 611-12.
152 Id. at 617.
153 State Auto Property and Cas. Co. v. Matty, 438 Fed. Appx. 820, 821 (11th Cir. 2011).
154 Id.
155 State Auto Property and Cas. Co. v. Matty, 719 F. Supp. 2d 1377, 1381 (M.D. Ga. 2010).
156 State Auto Property and Cas. Co. v. Matty, 438 Fed. Appx. 820, 822 (11th Cir. 2011).
157 See, e.g., N. Bay Schools Ins. Authority v. Industrial Indemnity Co., 6 Cal. App. 4th 1741 (1992) (holding that insured school
that was vandalized several times within the course of several hours involved separate “occurrences” because the acts of vandalism did not qualify as a “riot”).
Insights SPRING2021
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