Luneau v. Peerless Insurance Co

In Luneau v. Peerless Insurance Co., 170 Vt. 442, 750 A.2d 1031 (2000), the insured, who was employed as a disc jockey at a wedding reception, became involved in a fight with a wedding guest and, as a result, a speaker fell and struck the plaintiff, a bystander. The resulting lawsuit alleged that the disc jockey was negligent in his placement of the speaker and fighting with the guest. The insurer sought summary judgment, arguing that the injury was excluded from the policy as a matter of law. The Court held that the business-pursuits exclusion applied, and that the exception to the exclusion did not, because the relevant activity was not the fight or the knocking over of the speaker; rather, it was the disc jockey's failure to create a safe space for his customers. See id. at , 750 A.2d at 1036.