In an insurance coverage action currently pending in New York state court styled Century Indemnity v. The Archdiocese of N.Y., 2023 N.Y. Slip Op. 34420 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2023), the trial court granted the policyholders’ motion to dismiss, holding, in part, that the Chubb insurers improperly had attempted to shift the burden of proof as to whether the policyholders “expected or intended” the sexual abuse alleged in more than 1,000 underlying Child Victims Act suits to the policyholder. Earlier this year, the Appellate Division, First Department largely reinstated Chubb’s complaint without addressing the “expected or intended” defense. Century Indemnity v. The Archdiocese of New York, 226 A.D.3d 557 (1st Dep’t 2024). 

In another recent case involving environmental damages, Century Indemnity v. Brooklyn Union Gas, 75 Misc. 3d 1205, 2022 N.Y. Slip Op. 50388, 166 N.Y.S.3d 845 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2022), Chubb argued, unsuccessfully, that the standard for whether certain damage was “expected or intended” by a policyholder was whether there had been a “substantial probability of damage.”