Two cases: one without, one with a dog
A Naples contractor who walked away from a job is still entitled to his insurance company’s defense in a lawsuit filed by the disgruntled homeowner. So says a federal appeals court which last week overturned a U.S. District Court in Fort Myers over what constitutes damages under a “products-completed” policy exclusion.
MAC Contractors of Florida had gotten into a dispute with the homeowner after construction began on a custom-built home and eventually left without finishing the project. The homeowner sued, alleging various defects and damages in the work. While MAC’s liability insurance company, Southern-Owners Insurance Company initially agreed to defend the suit, it later withdrew, claiming a policy exclusion excluded coverage for property damage in the “products-completed operations hazard.”
Products-completed operations hazard is a liability loss that arises out of the policyholder’s product or work after he/she has relinquished possession of the product, or the work has been completed. The operative word here is “after”. The District Court had ruled in favor of the insurance company, given that MAC had allegedly abandoned the project. But the appeals court agreed with MAC, that the alleged damages occurred before the work was abandoned or completed and that therefore, the policy exclusion doesn’t apply.
The appeals court vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded the case back to Ft. Myers for further proceedings in Southern-Owners Insurance Co. v. MAC Contractors of Florida LLC; Paul S. Doppelt.
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A workers’ compensation claims adjuster has lost her own bid for worker’s comp, after tripping over a dog during a coffee break in her own kitchen while telecommuting.
Tammitha Valcourt-Williams of Sierra Vista, Arizona had initially won her case before a judge of compensation claims, who said she was entitled to benefits after she injured herself tripping over her dog while reaching for a coffee cup in her home kitchen. She was on a “personal comfort break” from her remote employment with Lake Mary based Sedgwick CMS, a workers’ comp claims management company.
The full 1st District Court of Appeal recently overturned that ruling by a 12-2 vote with the majority opinion that the risk did not arise out of the employment. “That risk exists whether the claimant is at home working or whether she is at home not working. It existed before Valcourt-Williams took her job, and it will exist after her employment ends (so long as she maintains a home with a dog),” wrote Judge Allen Winsor. The ruling sets the distinction that the risk was not one her employment introduced.
But the court’s dissenting opinion claimed the majority opinion reversed decades of precedent. “At first glance, it may appear incontrovertible that falling over one’s own dog in one’s own home is not compensable under workers’ compensation. But distilled to the essential facts, claimant Tammitha Valcourt-Williams, was injured in a trip and fall during work hours in her workplace (her house) when she fell over personal property (her dog) while attending to her personal comfort. The fact that Valcourt-Williams’s home was also her workplace and her kitchen doubled as her workday breakroom should do nothing to alter our consideration of her claim,” wrote Judge Ross Bilbrey.
The case is Sedgwick CMS and The Hartford/Sedgwick CMS vs Tammitha Valcourt-Williams
LMA Newsletter of 4-15-19
