Liability insurance policies are designed to provide protection for insureds as well as compensation for injured parties. Most jurisdictions require courts to interpret policies to afford broad coverage and to construe exclusions narrowly and against the insurer.
As the drafter of the policy, an insurer has the power to set the scope of coverage provided and the ability to exclude specific activities from the grant of coverage. If the insurer fails to use this power to exclude activities with specificity, the scope of coverage will not be constrained i as the Louisiana Court of Appeals recently ruled.
London v. Jambalaya Capital of World-Gonzalez, Louisiana, Inc.
2025 WL 1559187 (LA Ct. App. 2025)
Jambalaya Capital stems from the untimely death of Quincy Davis in 2021. Davis was hired to provide music broadcast services during the annual Christmas parade sponsored by Jambalaya Capital in Gonzalez. Davis had a rearward facing music station set up on the second tier of a float in the parade.
Unfortunately, Davis was struck in the back of the head by a low-hanging limb as the float moved down the street. Davis was knocked from the float to the street and suffered a severe head injury. Davis passed away ten days later from his injuries.
Davis’s family filed a wrongful death suit roughly 10 months after his death. Jambalaya Capital and others were named as defendants by the Davis family.
Jambalaya Capital’s Insurance Coverage
At the time of Davis’s death, Jambalaya Capital was insured by Ategrity Specialty Insurance Complaint under a commercial general liability policy. There was no dispute that Jambalaya Capital was insured under the policy and that the policy was in force at the time of Davis’s death.
However, the Ategrity Policy contained a Special Event Participant Exclusion. This exclusion provided that there would be no coverage for:
The practicing for or participation in any athletic event, contest, game, demonstration, exhibition, theatrical or musical performance, race or show covered by this policy…
Neither demonstration, exhibition nor show were defined in the Ategrity Policy. Based on this exclusion, Ategrity argued no coverage was available under the policy as the Christmas Parade was a demonstration, exhibition or show and Davis was a participant in the Parade. Ategrity would go on to deny coverage for the Davis lawsuit.
Davis Lawsuit
Jambalaya Capital added Ategrity as a party to the Davis Lawsuit. Jambalaya Capital claimed that the Ategrity Policy provided coverage for the claims and that Ategrity owed Jambalaya Capital a defense and indemnity.
Ategrity filed an Answer to Jambalaya Capital’s claims and denied any coverage was owed. Ategrity went on to file a motion for summary judgment on the coverage issue and argued that the Special Event Participant Exclusion precluded coverage. Consistent with its denial, Ategrity argued the exclusion was triggered as Davis was a participant in the Christmas Parade and the Christmas Parade constituted a demonstration, exhibition or show.
The trial court agreed with Ategrity and found that the claims made in the Davis Lawsuit fell within the Special Event Participation Exclusion. The Court went on to grant summary judgment to Ategrity.
Court of Appeals Decision
Jambalaya Capital obviously appealed the Court’s decision. The appellate court noted that the parties did not dispute that Davis had sustained “bodily injury” or that Davis was acting as a “participant” in the Christmas Parade at the time he sustained his injury. Instead, the dispute centered on whether the Christmas Parade constituted a ‘demonstration’, show’, or ‘exhibition’. If so, the exclusion would preclude coverage.
The appellate court first examined the policy language and noted that a parade was not an included term in the exclusion and that the exclusion did not include general terms or provide language that would indicate that the list of activities included in the exclusion was not exhaustive. Additionally, the court noted that the Ategrity Policy did not define the terms ‘demonstration’, ‘show’ or ‘exhibition’.
Since a parade was not specifically listed in the exclusion and there were no definitions of demonstration, show or exhibition which included a parade, the appellate court turned to dictionary definitions and a thesaurus to determine if those terms would include a parade. Dictionary definitions indicated that a parade would not fall within the normal meaning of a demonstration, show or exhibition. Additionally, the Merriam-Webster thesaurus did not identify ‘demonstration,’ ‘show’ or ‘exhibition’ as synonyms for parade.
The court noted that public policy required interpreting insurance policies to effect coverage. Since a parade was not an expressly included activity in the exclusion and was not a “plain, ordinary and generally prevailing meaning” of demonstration, show or exhibition, the court could not find that coverage was precluded.
Ategrity may very well have intended that the Christmas Parade be excluded under the Special Event Participant Exclusion. However, Ategrity chose not to explicitly exclude parades or provide definitions for the listed terms that would include a parade as an excluded event. Moreover, identifying certain events that would be excluded while leaving out parades was at least some evidence that parades were not intended to be excluded. As the drafter of the exclusion, Ategrity had every opportunity to ensure that parades would be included in the excluded events. Ategrity chose not to explicitly include parades despite knowing that courts interpret exclusions against insurers and interpret policies broadly to find coverage for losses. As such, when these factors were collectively applied to the Davis family’s loss, Ategrity could hardly have been surprised by the outcome.
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