## Facts

- Eric Michael Sanders was punched in the face by an unknown pedestrian while sitting in his van at a Santa Barbara intersection.
- Sanders told Roger Perez about the incident; Perez proposed returning to the location to find the assailant and retaliate.
- Before they reentered the van, Perez told Sanders he was armed with a handgun; Sanders knew someone was likely to be shot.
- Sanders drove Perez and others back to the intersection; David Flores was standing on the corner.
- Perez intentionally shot and injured Flores from the van while Sanders drove by.
- The van did not strike Flores and was not used to restrain, block, or pin him.
- Sanders admitted after arrest that he knew someone was likely to be shot and later pleaded nolo contendere to aiding and abetting the shooting.
- Flores sued Sanders and others for conspiracy, battery, and negligence, alleging an agreement to hunt down and shoot (and possibly kill or maim) the earlier assailant; those factual allegations were incorporated into each cause of action.
- Sanders’s van was insured under an automobile policy covering damages for bodily injury caused by an “occurrence” arising out of the use of the vehicle; “occurrence” was defined as an accident.

## Issues

1. Whether the injury from the passenger’s intentional shooting, which the insured driver knowingly facilitated, was an “accident” (an “occurrence”) within the meaning of the auto liability policy.
2. Whether any potential coverage (and thus any duty to defend or indemnify) was independently barred by Insurance Code § 533’s prohibition on indemnity for an insured’s willful act.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed judgment for the insurer in the declaratory relief action.
- The shooting was not an “accident” from the insured driver’s standpoint because he knew a shooting was likely when he transported an armed passenger to retaliate.
- The insurer therefore owed no duty to defend or indemnify Sanders in the Flores civil action.
- Insurance Code § 533 also barred coverage because the loss resulted from Sanders’s willful participation in the shooting (aiding and abetting).

## Legal Principles

- An “accident” in liability coverage requires an event that is unexpected, unintended, or unforeseen from the insured’s standpoint; harm that is expected or intended is not an accident.
- The duty to defend depends on a potential for coverage; pleading a “negligence” label does not create potential coverage where the operative facts describe intentional, expected harm.
- Auto liability coverage requiring injury “arising out of the use” of a vehicle is not triggered merely because a vehicle provides transportation or a location from which an intentional assault is carried out, particularly where the vehicle itself does not cause the injury.
- Insurance Code § 533 precludes indemnity for losses caused by an insured’s willful act and operates as a statutory limitation on coverage even if policy language might otherwise be argued to apply.

## Conclusion

Because Sanders knowingly drove an armed passenger on a retaliatory trip with the expectation that someone would likely be shot, the resulting gunshot injury was not an insured “accident,” and coverage was independently barred by Insurance Code § 533; the insurer owed no duty to defend or indemnify.


Interinsurance Exch. of Auto. Club of S. Cal. v. Flores, 45 Cal. App. 4th 661 (Cal. Ct. App. 1996)