By: Barbara Grzincic

From our sister paper south of the Potomac comes this story of a health insurance company that refused to pay on a $100,000 claim for a motorcycle rider’s injuries from a crash after he pleaded guilty to reckless driving, a misdemeanor. (He had been charged originally with drunken driving, Virginia Lawyers Weekly reported.)

Anthem Health Plans of Virginia figured there was no coverage because the General Provisions of its policy specify that it “does not cover any loss that results from the covered person committing … an illegal act.”

Roderick Bailey’s lawyer, though, argued that “illegal acts” is too broad a term to go undefined in the policy, which separately excludes the results of the insured’s felonies — under the “War” exclusion, 20 pages away from the General Provisions.

Misdemeanor reckless driving, by contrast, is essentially unintentional conduct, Bailey argues; and isn’t that what insurance is for? In other words, letting insurers deny coverage for unintentional conduct should be against public policy.

The lower court ruled for Anthem, which I’m told caused a stir among trial lawyers. Now, though, it’s the defense bar’s turn to worry: the Virginia Supreme Court has agreed to hear Bailey’s appeal.

A quick look online yields this similar case (pdf), decided in 2006 by a federal judge in Shreveport, La., but it’s hard to believe the situation doesn’t come up all the time. How do you think it would turn out here in Maryland?