Insurance, Exclusions, Sexual Molestation, “Care, Custody, or Control”, 1, 12
Gordon sued the owner and operator of a massage parlor for sexually molesting her while giving her a massage. This decision holds that the massage parlor’s insurer owed no duty to defend or indemnify with respect to the claim due to a sexual molestation exclusion in the policy. The exclusion barred coverage for molestation occurring while the victim was under the insured’s “care, custody, or control.” Interpreting those terms for the first time in connection with persons rather than property, this decision holds that “care” means “responsibility for or attention to health, well-being, and safety.” “Custody” means “immediate charge and control (as over a ward or a suspect) exercised by a person or an authority” or “safekeeping.” And “control” is the “exercise of restraining or directing influence over” or “having power over.” Here, the phrase was in the disjunctive, so it was enough to find that Gordon was under the parlor’s “care” when she was receiving its massage, an activity concerned with Gordon’s health or well-being.