Federal Court Holds Excess Insurer Must Cover $2 Million for Mother and Daughters Hurt in Head-On Truck Crash

On October 27, 2018, Erica Chambers was driving south on North Carolina Highway 49 with her two teenage daughters when a truck owned by Big Boss Construction, Inc. crossed the center line and hit her car head on. The driver had no valid driver's license. The parties agreed he was working for the company at the time, on his way to finish a job for another contractor that was using the truck with Big Boss's permission.

Chambers spent 34 days in the hospital with broken bones throughout her body, including her face, jaw, back, legs and ribs. She wore a cranial halo for three months and had several surgeries that left hardware in her body. Some of her injuries are permanent. One daughter suffered a head injury that left her with continuing memory problems, and the other broke a leg.

The family sued the driver, Big Boss and the other contractor in North Carolina state court, alleging among other things that Big Boss negligently entrusted its truck to an unlicensed driver. The truck's underlying auto policy paid only a fraction of what the injuries called for. Big Boss also carried a commercial excess policy from Harford Mutual Insurance Group, Inc. Harford denied the claim, pointing to an exclusion for liability arising out of the use of any automobile.

Chambers brought a declaratory judgment action over that denial, and Harford removed it to federal court in Greensboro. The parties settled the underlying injury claims on terms that left the coverage question to the court. The district court granted judgment on the pleadings for the family. It reasoned that the same policy's aircraft and watercraft exclusion expressly reached entrustment, while the automobile exclusion did not, so the excess policy covered a negligent entrustment claim. It also held that Harford owed pre- and post-judgment interest.

Harford appealed, and the Fourth Circuit heard argument on March 18, 2025. In an unpublished opinion on August 8, 2025, the panel affirmed on both points. It held that North Carolina law requires an insurance policy to be read as a whole and that any ambiguity in an exclusion is construed against the insurer. Coleman Cowan argued the appeal for the family, with Kaitlyn Fudge on the brief, both of the Law Offices of James Scott Farrin.

The $2 million excess coverage, with interest, brought the family's total recovery to $2,861,458 more than six years after the crash, according to North Carolina Lawyers Weekly.