Moderator: Van Canna
The services that we do provide are substantial though. Should one of our members find themselves in the unfortunate circumstance of having to defend themselves with any weapon, a call to CCW Safe sets your legal defense team in motion. We provide a highly qualified lawyer, an experienced investigator, and whatever expert witnesses that might be needed at trial. Members are represented in all criminal, civil and administrative actions without a deductible or limit on costs. We are there to do everything possible to protect and defend our members legal rights.
The best way to illustrate this would be to use the recent case of George Zimmerman. While CCW Safe had no part in the Zimmerman action, it is an excellent example to use here.
The tragedy began the moment Mr. Zimmerman felt he had to ‘pull the trigger’ to defend his life. Sadly, in that moment a young man lost his life. Sadly, in that moment George Zimmerman’s nightmare had just begun. He cooperated with the police, answered all their questions and the local investigators determined that he was justified in using force to defend himself.
Then came the political machine. When national news got wind of the case, politicians got involved and Mr. Zimmerman was arrested and charged with 2nd degree murder.
As we know, a jury ultimately found him Not Guilty of the 2nd degree murder charge and the lesser charge of manslaughter, but there can be no doubt that his legal expenses for that one trial ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. All of the lawyers, all of the experts, all of the expenses have left Mr. Zimmerman utterly financially devastated.
Are his legal troubles over? Not even close. Shortly after the criminal trial ended, the Attorney General of The United States announced that they have launched an investigation to see if Mr. Zimmerman violated Trayvon Martin’s civil rights.
That’s a whole new criminal trial for Mr. Zimmerman should he be charged. The family of Trayvon Martin is almost certainly going to file a civil suit against Mr. Zimmerman. The costs of defending against that could run just as high as his criminal trial. Unfortunately for Mr. Zimmerman, he’s broke.
CCW Safe would have had a lawyer standing in front of him within a few hours after the incident occurred. We would have dispatched an experienced investigator to do our own investigation, paying particular attention to protecting our member.
You have to remember, the police are there to collect evidence to prosecute you. Should a trial ensue, our experts all have impeccable credentials and are highly experienced in their fields of murder investigations, crime scene reconstruction, medical and psychological examinations, and self defense.
We would do all of this without the member having to spend a single penny beyond their membership dues. We would do it for any criminal action, civil action, appeals and administrative action. We would do it without any deductible or limit on cost.
Like any business, we offer a certain service for a certain price. We openly disclose our terms of our service for the price we ask. If we were to include coverage for judgments, penalties, and bail, we would have to raise our prices accordingly to cover the added exposure. Our members do not feel that is necessary.
Justice Iacobucci cautioned that a court must look beyond the labels used by the plaintiff in drafting a statement
of claim, and determine the true nature of the claim pleaded. He then provided guidance as to the proper
resolution of a duty to defend situation where the pleadings alleged both intentional and non-intentional torts:
“ … Having construed the pleadings, there may be properly pleaded allegations
of both intentional and non-intentional tort. When faced with this situation, a
court construing an insurer’s duty to defend must decide whether the harm
allegedly inflicted by the negligent conduct is derivative of that caused by the intentional conduct.
In this context, a claim for negligence will not be
derivative if the underlying elements of the negligence and of the intentional
tort are sufficiently disparate to render the two claims unrelated. If both the
negligence and intentional tort claims arise from the same actions and cause
the same harm, the negligence claim is derivative, and it will be subsumed
into the intentional tort for the purposes of the exclusion clause analysis.
If, on, the other hand, neither claim is derivative, the claim of negligence
will survive and the duty to defend will apply."
Parenthetically, I note that the
foregoing should not preclude a duty to defend simply because the plaintiff has
pleaded in the alternative. …
The reasons for this conclusion are twofold. First, as discussed above, one must
always remember that insurance is presumed to cover only negligence, not
intentional injuries. Second, this approach will discourage manipulative pleadings
by making it fruitless for plaintiffs to try to convert intentional torts into negligence,
or vice versa. …”28 (emphasis added)
And further Justice Iacobucci stated:
“… In the context of an insurance contract’s intentional injury exclusion clause,
the goal is to determine the gravamen of the complaint, and whether one can
infer an intent to injure from that complaint. …”29 (emphasis added)
As noted above in Reeb v. Guarantee Company (supra) the Court concluded that the legal allegations were not
properly pleaded because all of the particulars pleaded in the underlying action were founded in negligence
with no suggestion of an intentional tort.
The labels used were consistent only with negligence while the
evidence supported an intentional act. The damages resulting from the negligence pleaded were entirely
derived from the intentional shooting. The harm which resulted from the intentional shooting was the same
harm upon which the claims in negligence were based.
The Court was clearly of the view citing Tedford v. TD
Insurance Meloche Monnex30, Monenco31 and Scalera32 that this was an appropriate case to “look beyond the
labels used by the plaintiff in the pleadings to ascertain the “substance” and “true nature” of the claims.
It was
the Court’s conclusion that this was an example of a plaintiff drafting “a statement of claim in a way that seeks
to turn intention into negligence in order to gain access to an insurer’s deep pockets”.33
A criminal defense attorney may not necessarily be able to improve a client's chances to ultimately secure insurance coverage for any subsequent civil litigation, but if the attorney consults the relevant policy, he or she may be able to prevent taking an action in the criminal case that irrevocably surrenders the client's right to pursue insurance coverage.
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