Syllabus The plaintiff, C Co., sought damages from the defendant insurer, A Co., alleging that A Co. had breached its insurance contract with C Co. by failing to defend C Co. in a separate civil action brought against C Co. on behalf of a child victim who alleged that she had been sexually abused and molested by three other children while attending a preschool program operated by C Co. The trial court, in granting A Co.'s motion for summary judgment, did not explain its reasoning for its decision other than citing to one Superior Court case. The trial court rendered judgment in favor of A Co., from which C Co. appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the trial court's judgment, concluding that the record was inadequate for appellate review because C Co. had failed to provide the Appellate Court with a memorandum of decision or signed transcript of an oral ruling in which the trial court stated its reasoning in support of its decision. On the granting of certification, C Co. appealed to this court. Held:
1. The Appellate Court improperly determined that the record was inadequate for review of C Co.'s claim that the trial court improperly had rendered summary judgment for A Co.: although it would have been preferable for the trial court to have provided a more detailed explanation of its ruling, the issue of whether A Co. had a duty to defend C Co. was purely a question of law requiring de novo review by the Appellate Court and, therefore, the precise legal analysis undertaken by the trial court was not essential to the Appellate Court's consideration of C Co.'s claim on appeal; furthermore, the Superior Court case cited by the trial court in support of its decision to grant A Co.'s motion for summary judgment addressed an issue analogous to the issue presented in this case, in a manner consistent with the trial court's conclusion, indicating that the trial court correctly identified the applicable law.
2. The trial court properly granted A Co.'s motion for summary judgment on the ground that A Co. had no duty to defend C Co. in connection with the action brought against it on behalf of the victim; the insurance policy explicitly and unambiguously excluded from coverage the conduct alleged in the complaint filed in the action brought against C Co., and, notwithstanding C Co.'s claim that, based on the tender age of the children who allegedly abused and molested the victim, it could not be presumed that their conduct was sexually motivated, there was nothing in the language of the exclusion to indicate that the alleged abuse or molestation must have been sexually motivated or calculated to arouse the persons involved in the offending conduct.
Opinion
PALMER, J.
The principal issue raised by this certified appeal is whether the defendant insurer, American Alliance Insurance Company, had a duty to defend its insured, the plaintiff, Community Action for Greater Middlesex County, Inc., in a negligence action brought against the plaintiff on behalf of a child who alleged that she had been sexually abused and sexually molested by three other children while the four children were attending a preschool program operated by the plaintiff. The defendant contends that it had no duty to defend the plaintiff in light of an exclusion in its insurance policy for abuse or molestation. We agree with the defendant.