In Westfield Ins. Co. v. Davis, 232 F. Supp. 3d 918 (S.D. W. Va. 2017), it was held under West Virginia law and the unambiguous liability section of a homeowner's insurance policy, that insureds' mistaken harvesting of trees on property of another person was not an accident, and so was not a covered occurrence.
This decision is in line with the great majority of decisions under comprehensive general liability (CGL) policies that an occurrence is an accident neither expected nor intended by the insured, which many CGL policies now expressly provide. That is exactly the approach taken by the Davis court under the homeowner's insurance policy at issue in this case in West Virginia.
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