Insurance carriers are not off the hook in two high-profile lawsuits involving alleged sexual abuse and millions of dollars in defense costs and indemnity—one in North Carolina and one in Georgia.
In the North Carolina case, Ohio Casualty Insurance Co., a Liberty Mutual Insurance subsidiary, and other insurers have reached settlement agreements with a mentally challenged young man who was wrongly coerced into confessing to the rape and murder of an 11-year-old neighbor, according to federal court records and news reports.
The insurers will pay much of the $10 settlement with Antonio Trey Jones, who was 14 at the time. He is now 27. The state of North Carolina and the Sampson County Sheriff’s Office will pay about $1 million, a proposed settlement order in the U.S. District Court for Eastern North Carolina explains.
Jones’ lawsuit, filed in 2023, argued that Sampson County Sheriff’s detectives failed to recognize Jones’ intellectual disabilities and obtained a confession but no physical evidence in the murder case. Jones spent almost seven years in jail. DNA evidence later cleared him of the charges, but the crime remains unsolved, news sites reported.
In another widely publicized lawsuit, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a move by Northfield Insurance Co. to have a court declare that the insurer owed no coverage in a sex-trafficking case.
Northfield, part of Travelers group of insurance companies, provided a commercial liability policy to United Inn and Suites in Decatur, Georgia. In 2020, a woman identified in court records only as “J.G.” sued the motel, arguing that she suffered injuries while being trafficked at the inn.
The insurance policy states that it does not cover injuries arising from molestation or abuse, and policy endorsements exclude assault and battery injuries, Northfield attorneys argued. The lower federal court found that it was too soon to make a coverage determination, and that the underlying lawsuit had not been finalized.
The appeals court judges essentially agreed, finding that the lower court’s actions had not reached an appealable stage. But the 11th Circuit also said Northfield has options: It can ask the district court for a final judgment, then appeal again.
The opinion and Judge Gerald Tjoflat’s strongly worded concurring opinion can be seen here.
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