Litigation arose over whether a suit for misrepresentation and breach of contract arising out of an easement triggered a Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurer's duty to defend. Internal confidential communications...more
Should a contractor’s Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance policy cover the expense of uncovering defective work causing damage to the owner’s property as well as the costs of exposing or accessing damaged building...more
Co-Author: Jenna Davidson The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (“Appellate Court”) addressed in a May 31st Opinion an insurance coverage question arising out of hydraulic fracking services being employed...more
Courts took up some interesting insurance questions this past month. Here’s some we address in our June Insurance Update. When a government sponsored cyberattack infects computers worldwide, does the war exclusion apply? ...more
In a May 31, 2023, precedential decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit confirmed that under well-settled Pennsylvania law, claims of poor workmanship do not involve an “occurrence” required to...more
Third-party claims seeking damages for faulty workmanship that results in property damage are covered under general liability policies in most jurisdictions. Virginia is not one of them. A federal district court recently...more
If you were to look for a quick answer regarding whether a commercial general liability (CGL) policy covers damage resulting from faulty workmanship under Pennsylvania law, you’d likely come out believing the answer is...more
Insurers regularly argue that commercial general liability (“CGL”) policies are not performance bonds and therefore there is no coverage for claims seeking damages for defective or faulty workmanship. Insurers also argue...more
The construction industry operates under the constant spectre of claims seeking damages for defective or faulty workmanship. Fortunately, the law in most states treats these claims as covered under commercial general...more
Assemblyman Gary S. Schaer of New Jersey’s 36th District introduced a proposed bill, A.B. 1075, that would require all commercial liability insurance policies issued in New Jersey to include “faulty workmanship” within the...more
Awarding summary judgment to an insurer under both liability and directors & officers (D&O) coverage parts, a New Jersey trial court reaffirmed the principle that claims of defective workmanship without resulting “property...more
Potential Six-Year Delay in Notice of Flood and Mold Damage “Substantially Prejudiced” Insurer - In Atain Specialty Insurance Company v. Carolina Professional Builders, LLC et al., 2:18-cv-2352-BHH (D.S.C. Oct. 2, 2020),...more
On June 29, 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a subcontractor’s commercial general liability (CGL) insurance policy may provide a contractor listed as an additional insured on the CGL policy with insurance coverage...more
The standard for an “occurrence” under a commercial general liability (CGL) insurance policy has been addressed on several occasions by Pennsylvania courts when an insured has allegedly performed faulty workmanship on a...more
The insurance coverage analysis under a commercial general liability (“CGL”) insurance policy begins with the “insuring agreement.” The standard CGL policy provides coverage for “those sums that the insured becomes legally...more
In a recent decision, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (a federal appellate court supervising the federal trial courts in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the Virgin Islands) enforced the plain meaning of an...more
In Ohio N. Univ. v. Charles Constr. Servs., 2018 Ohio LEXIS 2375 (No. 2017-0514, October 9, 2018), the Supreme Court of Ohio was recently called upon to determine if a general contractor’s Commercial General Liability (CGL)...more
Earlier this month, in Frederick Mutual Insurance Company v. Hall, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit concluded that coverage for faulty workmanship claims is “simply not the kind of coverage insurance agents and...more
Last week, the Ohio Supreme Court unfortunately narrowed the scope of coverage for a subcontractor’s faulty workmanship. The court held in Ohio Northern University v. Charles Construction Services, Inc. that faulty...more
In an opinion released on October 9, 2018, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that a general contractor’s commercial general liability insurance did not cover the defective work of either that contractor or its subcontractors....more
A little over two months ago, we analyzed the recent decision in Black & Veatch Corp. v. Aspen Insurance (UK) Ltd., which placed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in line with a consistently expanding number of...more
It is axiomatic that in order to obtain insurance coverage a policyholder must first establish that a claim falls within a policy’s insuring agreement before coverage under the policy is triggered. For construction claims...more
As this blog has reported, a line of cases deciding coverage disputes over faulty workmanship runs against (or, at least, around) a basic rule for interpreting insurance policies. Under that rule, the scope of coverage is...more
When an insurer issues a Commercial General Liability policy to a contractor, the policy typically excludes coverage for the cost of repairing or replacing the contractor’s own defective work, but covers the cost of repairing...more
Court Rejects Attempt to Broaden "Employer's Liability" Exclusion, Requiring Coverage - Why it matters: A New York federal court recently ruled that an "Employer's Liability" exclusion in a CGL policy applies only when...more