A Wisconsin judge has ordered Mt. Morris Mutual Insurance Co. to defend Tyler Frisch in civil lawsuits stemming from a 2022 bonfire explosion near Pulaski, even as a jury may still decide whether the policy’s intentional-acts exclusion applies. The blast injured more than a dozen people, many of them current or former Pulaski High School students. The ruling keeps an insurance fight alive in a case that has already produced a criminal sentence for another participant.
Brown County Circuit Judge John Zakowski denied Mt. Morris Mutual’s request to leave the lawsuits, according to WTAQ’s report. The insurer argued the explosion did not qualify as an “occurrence” under the policy and that coverage should be barred because the conduct was intentional. Zakowski rejected the request for dismissal, and no trial date has been set.
The underlying civil cases were filed by people injured at the October 2022 gathering, including Benjamin Van Asten, Isaac Nelson and his parents, Brady McAllister and his father, Brandon Brzeczkowski, and Matthew Lindsley. The suits name homeowner Allan Eron and Samuel Armstrong and Frisch as defendants, while alleging that Armstrong and Frisch moved a fuel container near the fire, as NBC 26 reported.
Coverage Dispute Heads Toward A Jury Question
Zakowski’s ruling draws a line between whether Frisch’s insurer must provide a defense and whether the policy ultimately covers damages. The judge said the split-second contact explosion, rather than simply the act of tossing the barrel, was the injury-causing event, and found “no evidence that Tyler had a subjective intent to injure anyone,” according to WTAQ.
That does not end the coverage dispute. A jury will still consider whether throwing a barrel containing a gasoline-and-diesel mixture onto a bonfire surrounded by people was so dangerous that the policy’s intentional-acts exclusion should apply.
The explosion occurred on October 14, 2022, in the Town of Maple Grove, about 25 miles northwest of Green Bay, during a gathering attended by roughly 60 young people. The Associated Press reported that at least 17 people were burned after Armstrong threw a barrel containing gasoline and diesel into the fire; Armstrong later pleaded no contest to 13 counts and received one year in jail and five years of probation.
