Freeburg Community Consolidated School District No. 70 v. Country Mutual Insurance Co.
2021 IL App (5th) 190098 (Ill. App., 2021)Words & Phrases
Duty to Defend: Extrinsic EvidenceTrial Judge
Stephen R. Rice and Julie K. KatzAppellate Judge
BarberisHolding
Extrinsic evidence may be considered in a determination of the duty to defend, if it does not determine an issue crucial to the determination of the underlying action.Fact Summary
The instant appeal involves a coverage dispute pertaining to a claims-made insurance
policy (policy) issued by defendant, RSUI Indemnity Company (RSUI), to plaintiff, Freeburg Community Consolidated School District No. 70 (Freeburg school district), and its directors and officers. The policy covered claims made during the policy period July 1, 2013, to July 1, 2014. RSUI denied Freeburg school district’s demand for coverage under the policy for an underlying federal lawsuit (Doe 4 action) filed against Freeburg school district and certain former Freeburg school district officials, Herschel Parrish, Clarence Haege, and Lawrence Meggs,1 on June 11, 2014. The Doe 4 action was brought by John Doe 4, a former Freeburg school district student, who alleged that he had been sexually abused on multiple occasions, by a male Freeburg school district official, Robin Hawkins (now deceased), from 2007 to spring of 2009.
Claims that involve the same, continuing course of misconduct by the same school officials that culminates in the same type of harm from a common, identified sexual predator, while that predator was an employee of the Freeburg school district is a “related series of facts, circumstances, situations, transactions or events” under any ordinary meaning of the phrase. This is especially true in the context of a claims-made policy, where the triggering event is the filing and service of a complaint, rather than the occurrence date of the alleged misconduct.