Gearing v. Nationwide Insurance

In Physicians Ins. Co. v. Swanson (1991), 58 Ohio St.3d 189, 569 N.E.2d 906, we held, as syllabus law, that “[i]n order to avoid coverage on the basis of an exclusion for expected or intentional injuries, the insurer must demonstrate that the injury itself was expected or intended.” (Emphasis added.) In that case, Bill Swanson fired a BB gun in the direction of a group of teenagers sitting at a picnic table seventy to one hundred feet away. He testified, however, that he aimed not at the teenagers, but rather at a sign on a tree ten to fifteen feet from the table. Nevertheless one of the…