## Facts

- Jessica J. Wright engaged in a sustained harassment campaign against Lewis A. Heacker for nearly five years, including hacking his accounts, sending disparaging communications, and making anonymous calls and texts.
- Heacker claimed serious emotional and physical consequences, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), alcoholism, and related physical ailments.
- Heacker obtained a multi-million-dollar Missouri state-court judgment against Wright based on the harassment.
- Wright had two relevant insurance policies:
  - A homeowner’s policy covering “bodily injury,” defined as “bodily harm, sickness, and disease.”
  - An umbrella policy covering certain “personal injury” (including defamation and privacy violations) but excluding “personal injury arising from mental abuse.”
- Heacker filed an equitable garnishment action against Wright and her insurers (including Safeco and Nationwide) to collect the judgment proceeds from the policies.

## Issues

1. Whether Heacker’s claimed harms (including PTSD, alcoholism, and related physical effects) constituted covered “bodily injury” under the homeowner’s policy under Missouri law.
2. Whether the umbrella policy’s “personal injury” coverage applied to Wright’s conduct, or whether the exclusion for “personal injury arising from mental abuse” barred coverage.
3. In equitable garnishment, whether Heacker met his burden to show the judgment was within the policies’ coverage during the relevant policy periods.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the insurers.
- The umbrella policy did not cover the judgment because Wright’s conduct qualified as “mental abuse” and fell within the policy’s exclusion, even if aspects of the conduct also resembled defamation or privacy violations.
- The homeowner’s policy did not cover Heacker’s claimed damages because PTSD, alcoholism, and related physical effects were treated as manifestations of emotional injury rather than “bodily injury” as defined and applied under Missouri law.
- Because the claims were outside coverage, Heacker could not recover policy proceeds through equitable garnishment.

## Legal Principles

- In Missouri equitable garnishment, the judgment creditor bears the burden to show by substantial evidence that the claim and damages fall within the insurance contract’s coverage and occurred during the policy period.
- An insurance term is not ambiguous merely because it is undefined; ambiguity requires that a term be reasonably open to different constructions in context.
- Policy exclusions are enforced according to their ordinary meaning when unambiguous; conduct characterized as sustained harassment may fall within an exclusion for “mental abuse.”
- Under Missouri law applied in this case, emotional distress and its physical manifestations are not treated as covered “bodily injury” absent policy language or controlling authority extending coverage.

## Conclusion

The court held that the insurers owed no coverage for the harassment judgment because the umbrella policy’s “mental abuse” exclusion applied to the conduct and the homeowner’s policy did not cover PTSD, alcoholism, or related physical effects as “bodily injury,” defeating equitable garnishment.


Heacker v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Am., 676 F.3d 724 (8th Cir. 2012)