Swift v. Fitchburg Mutual Insurance

We hold that the defendant insurer under a homeowners policy was in breach of the contract and, the “criminal acts” exclusion being inapplicable, is liable for expenses incurred by the insured in responding to a third-party suit and for the amount of the judgment against the insured in that suit.

*618 NARRATIVE

1. On February 12, 1994, the plaintiff Anne Francis (then seventy-seven years old) and her daughter, the plaintiff Carolyn Swift, were at their home in Rehoboth. Ralph Goff, Jr., forty-one years old, had driven to their house in his truck that morning and was asked in for lunch. (Goff’s…