A multiple-vehicle crash caused by runaway truck was a single occurrence under a commercial auto policy, a federal appeals court ruled overturning a lower court decision in a dispute between a unit of Great American Insurance Group and a unit of Markel Corp.

Over a 10-minute period in Houston on Nov. 15, 2013, a truck owned by Houston-based Global Waste Services LLC struck a Dodge Ram, a Ford F150, a Honda Accord, a toll plaza and a Dodge Charger, according to Monday’s ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans in Evanston Insurance Co. v. Mid-Continent Casualty Co. Two people, including the truck driver, died, and two others were injured, one seriously, according to the ruling.

In the ensuing litigation, Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Mid-Continent, a member of the Great American Insurance Group, which had issued a commercial auto insurance policy to Global with a $1 million per accident limit, paid out $1 million. It then withdrew from the litigation, claiming exhaustion of its policy limit.

Excess insurer Evanston Insurance, a Deerfield, Illinois-based unit of the Markel Corp., then settled the remaining litigation for an additional $2.2 million.

Evanston then filed suit in U.S. District Court in Houston seeking reimbursement from Mid-Continent for a portion of the payments Evanston made on Global’s behalf, and the entirety of its defense costs.

Evanston contended each separate impact between another vehicle or object constituted a separate accident subject to separate liability limits, while Mid-Continent asserted that under Texas law there was only one accident because the various injuries stemmed from the truck driver’s negligence.

The district court ruled in Evanston’s favor, holding two accidents had occurred, and ordered Mid-Continent to pay Evanston about $1 million plus the costs of Evanston’s defense.

On appeal, a three-judge appeals court panel overturned the lower court ruling. “Reversal of the district court is clearly appropriate,” said the appeals court’s ruling

“The ongoing negligence of the runaway Mack truck was the single ‘proximate, uninterrupted, and continuing cause’ of all the collisions…The language of the contract provides that all injuries — no matter the number of vehicles invovled or the number of claims made — arising from continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same conditions are considered a single accident,” said the ruling, in reversing the lower court and ruling in Mid-Continent’s favor.

In 2017, a federal appeals court held that a fireworks accident, where a 3-inch mortar shell launched directly into a crowd, was only a single occurrence despite the 19 alleged acts of negligence charged against the fireworks company and its employees.