MIAMI BEACH ENTERTAINMENT, INC., D/B/A CLUB ONE, AND TELLY LOCKETTE, APPELLANTS,
v.
FIRST OAK BROOK CORPORATION SYNDICATE, APPELLEE

Fla. 3d DCA | 1996-08-21
No. 95-3482
Before SCHWARTZ, C.J., and JORGENSON and GODERICH, JJ.
682 So. 2d 161 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (1996) Positive Treatment
Cited by 16 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court held that the insurance policy's assault and battery exclusion applied, precluding coverage for the patron's injuries, even though the patron sued for negligence.


Headnotes

[1] An insurance policy exclusion for assault and battery applies to injuries arising from "harmful or offensive contact between two or more persons," regardless of the insur…

[2] For purposes of insurance coverage, an injured patron's claims against a bar owner, couched in terms of negligence for failure to control patrons, may be deemed to arise…

Previewing 2 of 4 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

A patron was injured when a bottle was thrown during a brawl in an overcrowded nightclub. The patron sued the club for negligence, alleging failures i…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
JORGENSON, Judge.

JORGENSON, Judge.

A night club and its injured patron appeal from an order of final summary judgment determining no coverage and no duty to defend under the club’s insurance policy. We affirm.

Telly Lockette was a customer in Club One, a bar that was licensed for a maximum occupancy of 500 persons. On the Sunday night that he was there, approximately 1,500 people — three times the maximum allowed by law — were in the club. A fight broke out fifteen to twenty feet from Lockette’s table. Lockette did not know any of the ten or fifteen people involved in the brawl, and he himself was not involved. He was seated in the middle of the room on the second floor when people involved in the fight started throwing glass bottles and ashtrays. Lock-ette had his back turned away from the fight when he was hit in the head with a champagne bottle that had been thrown by one of the unknown brawlers. He sustained serious head injuries which forced him to abandon his college education and a promising future in football.

Loekette sued Club One for negligence, alleging that his injuries resulted from the club’s failure to prevent overcrowding; its failure to exercise adequate crowd control; its failure to provide adequate security; and its failure to maintain the premises in a safe manner. The insurer filed an action for declaratory relief, invoking a policy clause that excluded coverage for assault, battery, or “harmful or offensive contact between two or more persons.” The policy excluded coverage for such acts

[rjegardless of degree of culpability or intent and without regard to ... the alleged failure of the insured or his officers, employees, agents or servants to attempt to prevent, bar, or halt any such conduct.1

The insurer moved for summary judgment based on the policy’s assault and battery exclusion, relying on the plain language of the exclusion for harmful or offensive conduct. Loekette moved for summary judgment asserting that coverage lay based upon the liquor liability provision and that the incident that gave rise to the injuries did not fall within the assault and battery exclusion.

The trial court granted the insurer’s motion for summary judgment.

We hold that under the specific terms of the assault and battery exclusion, the trial court correctly found that coverage did not lie, as the conduct that was alleged was such an excluded “harmful and offensive contact.” Although the complaint was couched in terms of the bar owner’s negligence in failing to keep control over its patrons, for purposes of determining insurance coverage, the injuries arose from the assault and battery. See Britamco Underwriter’s, Inc. v. Zuma Corp., 576 So. 2d 965 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991)(bar whose customer recovered judgment against bar owner for negligence was not entitled to coverage by insurer when customer’s claim arose from assault and battery, and policy excluded coverage for assault and battery).

Cf. Marr Invs. v. Greco, 621 So. 2d 447, 449 (insurer should not be required to defend action for insured where plaintiffs complaint is couched in terms of negligence solely to reach insurance proceeds, where policy contained clear exclusion for assault and battery).

See also Britamco Underwriters, Inc. v. O’Hagan, 1994 WL 477551 (E.D.Pa. Sept.2, 1994), ajfd without opinion, 60 F. 3d 814 (3d Cir.l995)(where bar’s insurance policy precluded coverage for injuries arising from “harmful or offensive contact between two or more persons,” regardless of culpability or intent or the alleged negligence of the insured in preventing such incident, no coverage for bar patron injured by beer bottle thrown by other patron).

Moreover, in this case, as in Britamco, the language of the policy exclusion was specifically tailored to preclude claims of negligence for premises liability — the very claims that Loekette asserted in his complaint.

Although we conclude that the trial court properly ruled that Club One was not insured for Lockette’s injuries under the terms of its policy, our holding today is not disposi-tive of the issue of causation in Lockette’s action against Club One for negligence.

AFFIRMED.

. The policy also included dram shop and liquor liability coverage for bodily injury "for which the insured may be held liable by reason of causing or contributing to the intoxication of any person.” However, the person who threw the bottle that hit Loekette was never identified; the record is therefore devoid of any evidence that the assault was the result of the unidentified assailant’s intoxication.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By (11 total)

  • …arty assailants. An assault and battery exclusion in a liability policy precludes coverage for the negligence of the insured which arises as a result of the assault and battery. See Miami Beach Entertainment, Inc. v. First Oak Brook Corp. Syndicate, 682 So. 2d 161, 162 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996) (holding summary judgment based upon policy exclusion proper where claim based on negligence arose out of assault and battery); Britamco Underwriter’s, Inc. v. Zuma Corp., 576 So. 2d 965, 965 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991) (finding that…
  • Essex Ins. Co. v. BIG TOP OF Tampa, Inc., 53 So. 3d 1220 (Fla. 2d DCA 2011)
    …e coverage for claims of negligence which arise out of the alleged assault or battery. See Perrine Food Retailers, Inc. v. Odyssey Re (London) Ltd., 721 So. 2d 402, 404 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998); Miami Beach Entm’t, Inc. v. First Oak Brook Corp. Syndicate, 682 So. 2d 161, 162 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996); Britamco Underwriter’s, Inc. v. Zuma Corp., 576 So. 2d 965, 965 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991). Here, all three of the claims of negligence against Big Top arise out of the alleged battery committed by Davis. More specifically, the pol…
  • Sierra Auto Ctr., Inc. v. Granada Ins. Co., 317 So. 3d 1220 (Fla. 3d DCA 2021)
    …04 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998) (“An assault and battery exclusion in a liability policy precludes coverage for the negligence of the insured which arises as a result of the assault and battery.”); Miami Beach Ent., Inc. v. First Oak Brook Corp. Syndicate, 682 So. 2d 161, 162 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996) (“We hold that under the specific terms of the assault and battery exclusion, the trial court correctly found that coverage did not lie . . . Although the complaint was couched in terms of the bar owner’s negligence in fai…

Previewing 3 of 11 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw