AUSTIN -- The Texas Supreme Court must decide whether an insurance company should pay in the case of a boy injured by a driver who was speeding away from police.

Richard Gibbons was evading San Marcos police in 1999 when his pickup smashed into Greg and Maribel Tanner's car at an intersection. The wreck left 7-year-old Roney Tanner in a coma for a week, hospitalized for a month, and in physical therapy for five years.

The Tanners hoped Gibbons' $300,000 policy through Nationwide Insurance would pay their son's medical bills. But the company refused to pay the Tanners, saying Gibbons had violated his insurance contract when he led police on a chase whose end in a wreck was foreseeable. Gibbons drove about 100 mph, crossed into oncoming traffic, raced through stop signs and fishtailed around corners during the chase, the Austin American-Statesman reported Friday.

So far, two courts have sided with Columbus, Ohio-based Nationwide.

At issue is how to interpret Gibbons' insurance policy, which included a standard intentional acts exclusion. The clause voids coverage if the driver deliberately caused an accident.

Gibbons bought his policy in Ohio, a state that has a wider definition of "intentional" than Texas. Ohio's exclusion voids coverage for "willful acts" that the driver "ought to know" will result in an accident.

Nationwide says Gibbons should have known that disregarding traffic signals and signs during a police chase would lead to a serious accident.

"You had someone going 80, 90, 100 miles per hour through residential areas, business areas, commercial areas," Nationwide attorney Chris Heinemeyer told the court during oral arguments in October.

The Tanners' lawyer, Don Cotton, argued that the accident was not inevitable. Gibbons' pickup hit the Tanner's car on a lightly traveled road surrounded by farmland. Police reported that Gibbons hit his vehicle's brakes in an attempt to avoid hitting the Tanners.

"It is nonsensical to say that somebody intentionally caused harm when the only evidence in the record is that he was trying to avoid causing that harm," Cotton told the nine justices. "The test is not reckless [acts]. The test is 'intentional.'"

The state Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision next year.

After the wreck, Gibbons was charged with using his truck as deadly weapon and disappeared after posting bail.

Hays County District Attorney Sherri Tibbe said the charges against Gibbons were dropped after prosecutors lost touch with the Tanners. Because of the pending state Supreme Court case, Tibbe has directed her office to take the case to a grand jury to reindict Gibbons.

Comments

(Requires free registration.)

0 comment(s) found!