Supreme Court of Kentucky has sided with Westport Insurance in a high-stakes coverage dispute tied to a wrongful conviction, holding that occurrence-based law enforcement liability policies trigger when criminal charges are filed, not during years of incarceration.
In an opinion issued on December 18, 2025, the court affirmed that Westport had no duty to defend or indemnify the City of Newport in a federal civil rights suit brought by the estate of William Virgil.
According to Insurance Business Mag, Virgil spent 28 years in prison before DNA evidence excluded him as the perpetrator, and a Campbell County grand jury declined to reindict.
The case traces back to a 1987 murder. Retha Welch was killed that year. In 1988, Virgil was charged, convicted, and sentenced to 70 years. His later civil complaint alleged Newport police officers suppressed exculpatory evidence and coerced a jailhouse informant into false testimony.
Virgil remained incarcerated until DNA testing of Welch’s rape kit cleared him. He was released in 2015. No new indictment followed.
In 2016, Virgil sued Newport and current and former police employees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in federal court.
He alleged denial of a fair trial, malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence, supervisory liability, failure to intervene, conspiracy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He sought damages for pain and suffering during incarceration, post-release disadvantages, and losses including physical harm, mental suffering, and the loss of a normal life.
Newport tendered the suit to all insurers that had covered the city between 1987 and 2015. Westport, as successor to Coregis Insurance Company, insured Newport from July 1, 1997, to July 1, 2000, under three consecutive one-year policies with law enforcement liability endorsements.
Westport denied coverage, arguing no triggering event occurred during its policy periods. It nonetheless defended under a reservation of rights and, in 2020, filed a declaratory judgment action in Campbell Circuit Court.
The insurer sought a ruling that it owed no defense or indemnity because the complaint did not allege bodily or personal injury occurring between 1997 and 2000. The circuit court granted summary judgment to Westport.
Newport and Virgil appealed. Virgil died before judgment, and Jerel Colemon, as administrator of his estate, was substituted. While the appeal was pending, Newport settled the federal case and assigned all insurance rights and claims against Westport to the estate. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted discretionary review.
For insurers, the decision turns on how the court read Westport’s occurrence-based wording. The 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 endorsements required Westport to pay damages because of bodily injury, property damage, or personal injury, and to defend suits seeking those damages, but only if the injury occurred during the policy period.
An “occurrence” included an offense resulting in personal injury. “Personal injury” covered offenses such as malicious prosecution and civil rights violations.
The 1999-2000 policy used slightly different phrasing but again limited coverage to injury occurring during the policy period and defined personal injury to include malicious prosecution and constitutional violations.
The court treated these as standard occurrence-based forms. Coverage depends on when the injurious event happens, not when a claim is filed. Virgil’s alleged personal injury therefore had to occur between July 1, 1997, and July 1, 2000, to trigger Westport’s policies.
According to Beinsure, the central dispute was timing. Colemon argued that Virgil’s injury continued throughout his incarceration and that confinement during the Westport years should trigger coverage.
He relied on St. Paul Guardian Ins. Co. v. City of Newport, a Sixth Circuit case involving different policy language, where ongoing imprisonment was treated as producing injury during later policy years.
The Kentucky Supreme Court disagreed. It focused on Westport’s definitions. Because an “occurrence” included an offense that results in personal injury, and malicious prosecution was itself defined as a personal injury, the court concluded the malicious prosecution was the injury for coverage purposes.
On when that injury occurs, the court adopted the reasoning of Genesis Ins. Co. v. City of Council Bluffs, an Eighth Circuit decision interpreting similar law enforcement liability language.
That case held malicious prosecution occurs, for insurance purposes, when criminal charges are filed. The Kentucky court aligned that approach with its own rule that an occurrence happens when the claimant is actually damaged, not when the wrongful act is later discovered or its effects linger.
For malicious prosecution, those moments are effectively the same.
Because Virgil was charged in 1987, the court held the personal injury occurred more than a decade before Westport’s coverage began.
The damages he later claimed were seen as continuing consequences of that original injury, not new, separate injuries arising during the 1997-2000 policy periods.
The justices also rejected arguments that the policy language was ambiguous and should be construed in favor of coverage. The definitions, they said, were clear and applied cleanly to the facts.
The ruling draws a firm line under Kentucky law. Under this common law enforcement liability wording, malicious prosecution is the insured personal injury, and it occurs when charges are filed.
Absent distinct injuries alleged within the policy period, occurrence-based law enforcement policies will not respond to decades-long wrongful conviction claims.
According to Beinsure, that clarity matters for municipal risk buyers and carriers alike, especially as similar claims continue to surface years after convictions unravel.
