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Revisiting Koikos: The Eleventh Circuit re-interprets the word “occurrence”

11/21/25

By: Christian Gunneson and Alexia Roney

In the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting in 2018, victims filed over sixty lawsuits against the Broward County Sheriff’s Office (“BCSO”) for failing to secure Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The BCSO tendered those claims to its insurer, Evanston Insurance Company (“Evanston”). The BCSO had an excess policy with Evanston that provided coverage after the exhaustion of a $500,000 self-insured retention (“SIR”) for each occurrence and a $500,000 aggregate deductible. Relying on the Koikos decision, Evanston argued that each separate pull of the gunman’s trigger constituted a separate “occurrence,” thereby requiring the BCSO to satisfy upwards of sixty SIRs before the policy was implicated. The BCSO argued that the shooting itself constituted one “occurrence,” and it was therefore only obligated to satisfy one SIR and only obligated to pay one deductible.

The Eleventh Circuit sided with the BCSO. The Court’s decision centered almost entirely on how to apply the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Koikos v. Travelers Insurance Company, 849 So. 2d 263 (Fla. 2003). In Koikos, a gunman shot two separate but nearly concurrent rounds, striking two people who then filed two separate suits. In that case, the insured argued that there were two “occurrences” because the policy carried a $500,000 “per occurrence” limit. This meant that, if the insured’s interpretation was correct, it would maximize the coverage available to it under the policy. Under the same definition of “occurrence” as found in Evanston’s policy, the Koikos court found that the shooting constituted two occurrences, not one.

Evanston urged the Eleventh Circuit to apply Koikos to the facts of the Parkland shooting case to find that there were upwards of sixty “occurrences” based upon each separate pull of the gunman’s trigger. The Eleventh Circuit rejected Evanston’s argument.

The Eleventh Circuit reasoned that the Koikos decision reached its conclusion because the court there found the term “occurrence” to be ambiguous. Therefore, the term was interpreted in the insured’s favor, which maximized coverage and resulted in two $500,000 “per occurrence” limits. Turning to the Parking shooting case, the term “occurrence” – as held in Koikos –  was ambiguous and was required to be read in favor of the BCSO to maximize its coverage under Evanston’s policy, resulting in just one “occurrence” and therefore requiring the BCSO to satisfy only one SIR and then exhaust the  deductible.

The Court’s decision results in opposite outcomes, but outcomes reached for the same reason: to maximize coverage for an insured when faced with interpreting an ambiguous word or phrase in an insurance policy. It is unclear whether this ruling will be extended beyond the specific facts of the case, but developments surrounding the applicability of this decision will need to be monitored.

For more information, please contact Christian Gunneson at christian.gunneson@fmglaw.com, Alexia Roney at alexia.roney@fmglaw.com or your local FMG attorney.

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