Store Robbery Policies -- Their Coverage and Construction
![handle is hein.journals/inslj6 and id is 12 raw text is: Store Robbery Policies--Their
Coverage and Construction
by JARED Y. SANDERS, Jr.
that the person robbed must be actually cog-
nizant of the robbery at the time it is
committed.
Legal Problems Involved
Thus, in actions for the recovery of losses
based upon store robbery policies, it is in-
cumbent upon the insured to show a felonious
taking, that the insured was placed in fear
of violence, or that there was a felonious
taking in his presence of which he was
actually cognizant. Obviously, one of the
principal issues in such cases is whether
or not the taking was committed in the
presence of the insured, and whether or
not he was actually cognizant of the taking.
In many of the cases, the initial phase of
the felonious act passes unnoticed by the
store owner. Frequently he is not physi-
cally near the actual scene of the taking,
However, the loss is eventually discovered,
and recovery from the insurer is sought.
In the majority of jurisdictions, the courts
JARED Y. SANDERS, JR. have held that the parties to the insurance
ee Who's Who in This Issue. contract did not intend an actual and literal
page 60 presence in the strict sense. But the
meaning of knowledge that the robbery
has transpired, raises a perplexing problem.
T HE protection afforded by a Store Rob-
bery Policy has long been of vital inter-
est to store owners and insurance companies
alike. In their attempt to clarify the risk
assumed under such a policy-a risk to be
distinguished from that assumed in a larceny
and theft policy- insurance companies have
inserted a definitive clause based funda-
mentally on the common law definition of
robbery: a felonious taking of goods or money
from the person or presence of another by
means of force.
Typical Insuring Clause
A typical clause, however, goes farther,
adding the element of fear contained in
Blackstone's definition: The felonious and
forcible taking from the person of another
of goods or money to any value, by violence
or putting him in fear (4 Black. Comm.
242), and concluding with the requirement
A Louisiana Case
The most recent appellate decision involv-
ing these issues in a suit on a store robbery
policy is that of the Louisiana Court of
Appeal for the First Circuit in Bourg v.
The Travelers Indemnity Co. (1943) [4 CCH
Fire and Casualty Cases 812]. The circum-
stances surrounding the robbery in this case
are not only interesting, but also important
to an understanding of the problems of the
coverage and construction of store robbery
policies.
The Bourg Robbery
One day in December, 1941, a roughly
dressed man came into a retail drug store
on one of the principal streets in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, and asked to see a
syringe. Mrs. B, proprietor of the store,
THE INSURANCE LAW JOURNAL JAN.
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Store Robbery Policies -- Their Coverage and Construction
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