"Fuzzy" Fact Allegations In Business Tort Lawsuits Make For Challenging Coverage

In a corporate insured’s perfect world, plaintiffs suing the corporation would file well pled complaints with clear and articulate fact allegations and express causes of action would be accurately and succinctly laid out. Commercial General Liability ("CGL") policies would clearly articulate the specific types of torts or offenses covered by the "advertising injury" and "personal injury" portions of the policy, determining coverage for suits against the corporation would be a simple matter of comparing the factual allegations and causes of action asserted by the plaintiff against the provisions of the CGL policy. Unfortunately, most plaintiffs refuse (wittingly or not) to do the corporate defendant the favor of pleading with an eye on facilitating the corporation’s efforts to obtain coverage for their suit. In fact, often times a suit with an underlying factual basis that would clearly be within standard CGL coverage appears to be uncovered because the plaintiff has