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(Article from Insurance Law Alert, June 2018)

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A Louisiana appellate court ruled that a multiple-impact collision that injured several individuals was a single occurrence for insurance coverage purposes.  Lloyd’s Syndicate 1861 v. Darwin National Assurance Co., 2018 WL 2327719 (La. Ct. App. May 23, 2018).

The coverage dispute arose out of an automobile accident that spanned a nearly one mile distance from initial to final impact.  During the course of the incident, the insured driver struck four different vehicles at a high rate of speed, resulting in numerous injuries.  The parties disputed whether the incident constituted one occurrence or multiple occurrences under Louisiana law.  A trial court ruled that the accident was a single occurrence, subject to a single policy limit under the driver’s policy.  The appellate court affirmed.

Addressing this matter of first impression under Louisiana law, the appellate court applied a causation test under which “an insured tortfeasor will be limited to a single policy limit for a single accident in situations where all of the successive impacts are the result of the same cause as the initial impact” unless there are “new and distinct, intervening cause[s].”  The court expressly rejected a “time and space” test under which accidents separated by time and space are considered multiple occurrences.  However, the court noted that factors relating to time and space are not irrelevant to the causation test; rather, a court may consider a time lapse or spatial range in evaluating whether injuries are the result of single occurrence or multiple occurrences.  Applying this framework to the factual record, the court concluded that the successive collisions were the result of a single cause without any intervening acts of negligence between impacts.