## Facts

- A 14-year-old insured, Joel Mark Burrough, stole a loaded .22 caliber handgun from his grandfather and kept it at home.
- Burrough repeatedly showed the gun to friends; the group sometimes fired it into the ground in a storage shed on Burrough’s property.
- The gun had previously misfired while being handled by a friend who had not touched the trigger or cocked the hammer.
- During socializing with other teenagers, Burrough furnished the handgun to another minor; the gun discharged and wounded Kenyatta Williams.
- Under Arkansas law, furnishing a deadly weapon to a minor is a misdemeanor; Burrough was not prosecuted but his conduct satisfied the offense.
- Burrough’s family had an Allstate homeowner’s policy excluding coverage for “any bodily injury or property damage which may reasonably be expected to result from the intentional or criminal acts of an insured person,” applying “regardless of whether the insured person is actually charged with or convicted of a crime.”
- After Williams sued Burrough in state court, Allstate filed a federal declaratory-judgment action seeking a ruling that it owed no duty to defend or indemnify Burrough.

## Issues

1. Whether Burrough’s furnishing of the handgun to another minor constituted a “criminal act” within the policy’s criminal-acts exclusion.
2. Whether Williams’s injury was bodily injury that “may reasonably be expected to result from” Burrough’s criminal act, despite the shooting being accidental.
3. Whether the exclusion could apply when the insured was not charged with or convicted of a crime.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Allstate.
- Burrough’s conduct constituted a criminal act within the meaning of the policy exclusion.
- The injury was a reasonably expected result of furnishing a loaded handgun to another minor under the circumstances.
- The exclusion applied even without criminal charges or conviction, because the policy expressly disclaimed any charge/conviction requirement.
- Allstate had no duty to defend or indemnify Burrough in the underlying tort action.

## Legal Principles

- Unambiguous insurance exclusions for injuries reasonably expected to result from an insured’s criminal acts are enforced according to their terms.
- A criminal-acts exclusion may apply to accidental injuries if the injury is a foreseeable consequence of the criminal conduct; the insured need not intend the specific harm.
- When a policy states an exclusion applies regardless of charge or conviction, coverage turns on the criminal nature of the conduct proved in the coverage dispute, not on prosecution or adjudication.

## Conclusion

The court held that the homeowner’s policy’s criminal-acts exclusion barred coverage because the insured’s uncharged misdemeanor conduct of furnishing a loaded handgun to a minor made the resulting gunshot injury a reasonably expected consequence, eliminating any duty to defend or indemnify.


Allstate Ins. Co. v. Burrough, 120 F.3d 834 (8th Cir. 1997)