You may have seen the story in the news. If not, here is an overview:
Four star football players at Eastside Catholic High School remained on the powerhouse team in 2018 while they were under criminal investigation for allegedly gang raping a 16-year-old girl from another school.
It’s undisputed, based on a review of hundreds of pages of law enforcement records, that four high school players took turns having sex with the girl in the open-air bed of a pickup truck as it drove through the wealthy Bellevue suburbs of Hunts Point and Medina. Two other teenagers, including another Eastside Catholic standout player, watched from inside the cab.
Most of the discussion so far has been about the alleged crime, privacy rights and one of the players losing his scholarship (and admission) to Stanford. But there’s something else that I think is important.
The girl who was in the back of the truck was apparently intoxicated. Intoxicated to the point that she could not consent to the sexual activity. She has a claim against the players who had sex with her and the players who drove the vehicle and filmed the activities in the bed of the truck.
You’re probably asking: How are these boys going to pay a judgment if the girl wins? The answer is that they aren’t going to pay. Their parents’ homeowner’s insurance is going to pay.
Homeowners insurance covers all sorts of claims. There are some exclusions. One of them is an exclusion for intentional conduct.
Gang rape may be intentional conduct. But if the girl’s complaint is formulated correctly, the intentional conduct exclusion will not apply. The attorney for the girl needs to allege (consistent with reports) that the players negligently perceived that the girl was able to consent to the actives in the bed of the truck. If that happens, coverage is triggered under the homeowners’ policies.
We’ve recovered six figure settlements under homeowners’ policies where people have punched, knifed and even lost dildos inside our clients. In this case, we anticipate that the girl will be able to recover substantially more.
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If you or someone you know has been seriously hurt, it makes sense to talk with us. There may be a way to recover.