DES MOINES – An Iowa appeals court has denied an insurance company is liable for injuries sustained when the company’s customer intentionally ran over a man and shattered his leg.
The appeals court upheld this week an earlier district court ruling that held that the insurance policy for an Iowa man – a race car driver named Jeremy Schaufenbuel, from New Hampton, Iowa – excludes intentional acts.
In a settlement for the victim – Mitchell Kelleher, formerly of Nashua but now living in Georgia – Schaufenbuel assigned all his rights against his insurer, American Standard Insurance Company of Wisconsin to Kelleher. American denied coverage to Schaufenbuel under the intentional acts exclusion in the policy.
A district court had earlier determined that coverage does not exist for Schaufenbuel, as the injuries to Kelleher were caused by an intentional act.
The case arose from incidents occurring in May 2005. Jeremy Schaufenbuel and a group of friends were involved in ongoing conflict with Mitchell Kelleher and his friends. In the early morning hours of May 14, 2005, Schaufenbuel – after a night of using his vehicle as a weapon, hitting other cars, including Kelleher’s, and using his vehicle to trap a person against a wall so others could hit that person – drove at Kelleher, who was on foot. Kelleher ran out of the way. Schaufenbuel put his car in reverse, punched the gas, and backed over Kelleher. Kelleher suffered a compound fracture of his right leg.
Schaufenbuel was charged with willful injury causing serious injury, but later entered an Alford plea to serious injury by vehicle.
Later at the personal injury trial, Kelleher filed a declaratory judgment action requesting a finding that Schaufenbuel was covered under the American policy. At trial, Kelleher testified about the various altercations that had occurred between the two groups, but testified he was injured accidentally when Schaufenbuel was attempting to “get away from a fight that was fixing to happen, so I think he was just trying to get away after he hit my car.“
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