We noted last month that the Ninth Circuit was likely to be sending an insurance question the Supreme Court’s way in Liberty Surplus Insurance Corporation v. Ledesma and Meyer Construction Company, Inc. That’s the case where one of the appeals court judges said at oral argument that he had read five or ten times part of an earlier Supreme Court decision and confessed, “I can’t for the life of me figure out what [the court was] trying to signal to the outside world.”
Today, the Ninth Circuit formally asks the Supreme Court to decipher its prior opinion, although the federal court doesn’t couch its written request quite so bluntly. The question the Ninth Circuit would like answered is “[w]hether there is an ‘occurrence’ under an employer’s commercial general liability policy when an injured third party brings claims against the employer for the negligent hiring, retention, and supervision of the employee who intentionally injured the third party.” The Ninth Circuit asserts that “[t]he answer to this question is of exceptional importance to injured parties, employers, and insurance companies doing business in California.” The case arises from claims of sexual abuse of a middle school student.
[August 24 update: The Supreme Court docketed the Ninth Circuit’s request yesterday.]