Vanguard Insurance v. Clarke

The sole issue presented concerns whether this Court should adopt the theory of dual or concurrent causation in the context of insurance liability. The problem of concurrent causation arises "[wjhen an insured cause joins with one or more additional causes, which may be uninsured . . . ,”1 The question in such cases is whether the convergence of causes should defeat an insurance policy exclusion.

A minority of courts in foreign jurisdictions *466have applied the concurrent causation theory to impose insurance liability notwithstanding an explicit policy exclusion. These cases involve the…