Gray v. Zurich Insurance Co.

How later courts described this case

• stating that an insurer’s duty to defend is “fixed by the facts which the insurer learns from the complaint, the insured, or other sources,” and holding that the insurer had a duty to defend because the facts pled in the complaint would have supported alternate, covered claims, notwithstanding “the theory of recovery” actually advanced by the third party
• reasoning that facts known to the insurer and extrinsic to the third party complaint can generate a duty to defend, even though the face of the complaint does not reflect a potential for liability under the policy because pleading rules liberally allow amendment and the third party plaintiff cannot be the arbiter of coverage
• finding that an intentional act exclusion did not negate the duty to defend because the insured “might have been able to show ... he did not commit wilful and intended injury, but [instead] engaged only in nonintentional tor-tious conduct” despite the underlying complaint’s “pleading of intentional and wilful conduct”
• finding a duty to defend when “the facts alleged do fairly apprise the insurer that plaintiff is suing the insured upon an occurrence which, if his allegations are true, gives rise to liability of insurer to insured under the terms of the policy” (internal citations omitted) (emphasis in original)

Written by the judges who cited it.