A federal appeals court has affirmed a lower court ruling that an insurer doesn’t have to provide coverage for a Tipton County employer facing wrongful death litigation.
High Performance Alloys Inc. is facing a lawsuit from the estate of plant manager Elliot Sullivan over injuries from a 2022 accident at the plant that led to his death.
In an opinion issued Tuesday, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said it agreed with a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana that the estate’s allegations in that case fall under Indiana’s worker’s compensation laws and are within coverage exclusions detailed in the employer’s insurance policy.
Appellate judges Thomas Kirsch II, Candace Jackson-Akiwumi and Doris Pryor agreed with the district court on both counts and affirmed the ruling.
Appellee Insurance Co. of the West had issued a worker’s compensation and employers’ liability insurance policy to High Performance Alloys, or HPA, that was in effect when Sullivan died. According to court documents, the employers’ liability portion only covers accidental bodily injuries but not obligations imposed by worker’s compensation law or bodily injuries that HPA “intentionally caused or aggravated.”
Sullivan died after being injured Aug. 12, 2022, during testing of a 750-ton forge press. Court documents say a metal bar or shim shot out from the machine during the test and hit the plant manager in the abdomen.
His estate filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that HPA failed to correct several dangers that caused his death. The estate specified that HPA knew the process that led to Sullivan’s death was dangerous, failed to implement available safety features and displayed “actual intent” to cause him injury, court documents state.
The insurer denied HPA’s request for coverage for the estate’s claim and sought declaratory relief stating that it doesn’t have a duty to defend the company against the claim.
The appellate court states that the estate’s allegations plead either an accidental injury covered by the state’s worker’s compensation act, an intentional injury that’s not covered by the worker’s compensation act or the liability policy, or both. Regardless, the insurance company doesn’t have a duty to cover HPA, according to court documents.
The case is Insurance Company of the West v High Performance Alloys, Inc., 25-1327.
This article was first published by The Indiana Lawyer.
