On February 15, 2013 a Pennsylvania federal district court held that the shipment of defective drywall from China to the United States constituted one “occurrence” for purposes of insurance coverage, and the occurrence took place when the damage caused by the drywall manifested itself in the residences or buildings of the underlying plaintiffs. With this ruling, Pennsylvania joins Virginia as one of the few states to opine regarding the number of occurrences in the Chinese drywall context.

Devon International, Devon International Industries, and Devon International Group (collectively, Devon), imported a single order of drywall from China to Pensacola, Fla. Unbeknownst to Devon, the drywall was defective, as it contained an inordinately high amount of sulfur, and a few years after selling the drywall to distributors in the United States, Devon was hit with a multitude of Chinese drywall lawsuits in various jurisdictions.