Does a plaintiff have an obligation to defend an action seeking damages not within the indemnification coverage provided by the insurer?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from Krause v. Western Heritage Insuranc Co., G041405, No. 07CC00537 (Cal. App. 2010):

commit willful and intended injury, but engaged only in nonintentional tortious conduct. Thus, even accepting the insurer's premise that it had no obligation to defend actions seeking damages not within the indemnification coverage, we find, upon proper measurement of the third party action against the insurer's liability to indemnify, it should have defended because the loss could have fallen within that liability." (Id. at p. 277; see also Mullen v. Glens Falls Ins. Co. (1977) 73 Cal.App.3d 163, 170 ["It is now settled that injuries resulting from acts committed by an insured in self-defense are not 'intended' or 'expected' within the meaning of those terms as customarily used in an exclusionary clause like the one involved in the present case"].)

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