California Appellate Tracker

Traveler’s Property Casualty Co. v. Actavis, Inc.

December 4, 2017

A commercial general liability policy does not cover a claim that the insured drug company over-promoted its addictive drug since promotion is intentional conduct, not an accident, and addiction is a natural and foreseeable result of the intentional promotion.

CGL insurers do not owe their drug company insureds a duty to defend the insureds against actions brought by Santa Clara County and the City of Chicago, alleging that the drug companies over-promoted their opioid drugs for non-acute, non-cancer treatment cases, thereby prompting widespread addiction to opioids and increased heroin usage. The alleged over-promotion of the drugs was intentional conduct, not an accident. Even if the addiction injury was not intended, it was a natural and foreseeable result of the drug companies’ intentional promotion of their drugs. Furthermore, the underlying actions fell within the CGL policies’ products exclusion since the suits arose from the drug companies’ products and the warranties and representations that the drug companies made about those products.

California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division Three (Fybel, J.); November 6, 2017); 2017 WL 5119167.

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Traveler’s Property Casualty Co. v. Actavis, Inc.

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