Merchants Preferred Insurance Company filed a declaratory judgment action in New York seeking a declaration that it had no duty to defend or to indemnify its insureds in an underlying Florida personal injury action arising...more
Chabad of Key Biscayne, Inc. v. Scottsdale Ins. Co., No. 22-13603 (11th Cir. 2023) - Chabad filed a claim for water damage after a drain or sewer pipe broke. The insurer denied the claim under the general water damage...more
Given the rise of cast iron pipe lawsuits in the state of Florida, RumbergerKirk’s recent summary judgment victory upholding a carrier’s limited water damage endorsement is a welcomed change for insurance carriers. It is the...more
A District Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently held that an insured’s submission of invoices altered to inflate replacement costs for water-damaged inventory constituted material misrepresentations. ...more
In Kenney v. Watts Regulator Co, No. 20-2995, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4539 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 11, 2021), the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania considered whether to exclude the plaintiff’s...more
West Virginia Supreme Court Upholds Water Backup Exclusion - The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia recently found an exclusion for loss or damage caused by “water that backs up or overflows from a sewer, drain, or...more
Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal recently issued a decision that serves as a reminder not to take for granted a proposition that most practicing attorneys regularly encounter: a motion for summary judgment must be...more
In S.O. Beach Corp. v. Great American Insurance Company of New York, No. 18-1967 (11th Cir. Oct. 31, 2019), the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in full to the insurer, finding there...more
A recent ruling in a U.S. District Court in Missouri may suggest a new path for policy exclusions based on “continuous or repeated seepage or leakage of water.” The Court rejected the argument that the continuous or repeated...more
We recently reported on the California Supreme Court’s decision in Oroville which provided a relaxed standard for public agencies facing inverse condemnation claims. Since that decision, a new unpublished Court of Appeal...more
There are instances where a party’s breach of the construction contract is undisputed. However, the amount of recoverable damages often hinges on the injured party’s own conduct both during and following that breach. The...more
In Cameron v. Scottsdale Insurance Company, No. 17-11907, 2018 WL 1791889, at *1 (11th Cir. Apr. 16, 2018), the Eleventh Circuit vacated the lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the insurer and relied on...more
Typical first party property policies include provisions that address failure to maintain heat as excluded losses. The Eastern District of New York recently analyzed a specific endorsement requiring that heat be maintained at...more
Frequent readers of the blog will appreciate that disputes involving the application of anti-concurrent causation language in the context of claims for flood or water damage have appeared with some frequency in recent years....more
In a recent opinion, U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater delivered the final blow to One Way Investments Inc. in its hail damage lawsuit against property insurer Century Surety Company — granting summary judgment in favor of...more
Many first party property insurance policies exclude claims for water damage that occurs when the insured premises is left vacant or unoccupied, unless the insured has used reasonable care to prevent such losses. In...more
The Paslays sued State Farm for failing to pay a portion of the damage caused to their Pacific Palisades house by a heavy rainstorm and for forcing them to move back into the house while it was still under construction. The...more
In Paslay v. State Farm General Ins. Co. (No. B265348, filed 6/27/16), a California appeals court found triable issues of fact regarding whether State Farm breached its contract in paying a water loss, but affirmed summary...more
Disputes involving “vacancy” exclusions typically involve the appropriate definition of that word. The recently-decided case of Lui v. Essex Ins. Co., 2016 Wash. LEXIS 692 (Wash. June 9, 2016) presents a somewhat different...more
Two weeks ago in Wheeler v. Allstate Ins. Co., 2015 WL 5714392, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131736 (C.D.Utah, Sep. 29, 2015), a Utah court barred coverage for a mold loss caused when a vacant log cabin suffered a long-term water...more
Monday, in Nurse v. Omega U.S. Insurance., Inc., 2015 Mass. App. LEXIS 158, 2015 WL 5774390 (Mass.App., Oct. 5, 2015), a unanimous panel of Massachusetts’ intermediate level appellate court held that the two-year suit...more