The United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida recently issued an order in Morette Company v. Southern-Owners Insurance Company, [1] where the Court addressed whether an insurer, Southern-Owners Insurance Company (“Southern-Owners”), had duties to defend and indemnify various parties against state court claims for property damage due to allegedly defective work performed by two of its insured subcontractors, Etheridge Construction, Inc. (“Etheridge”) and Wallace Sprinkler & Supply, Inc. (“Wallace”). Morette Companybegan in August 2008, when Little Sabine, Inc. (“Sabine”), the developer and owner of Margaritaville, hired Morette Company, Inc. (“Morette”) as general contractor for the Margaritaville project. Morette subcontracted work to Etheridge and Wallace. The terms of the respective subcontracts required each subcontractor to defend and indemnify Morette for all damages claims “occasioned by” the subcontractor’s work and to reimburse Morette for all expenses incurred, including reasonable attorney’s fees, as a result of such claims.
Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies typically include a “your work” exclusion, excluding coverage for “’property damage’ to ‘your work’ arising out of it or any part of it and included in the ‘products-completed operations hazard.’” These CGL policies define “your work,” in pertinent part, as “work or operations performed by you or on your behalf.” Read More…
Failing to plead damage to other property, even in the face of record evidence supporting damage to other property, can result in a ruling that there is no duty to defend. In Florida, a commercial general liability (“CGL”) insurer’s duty to defend its insured is determined by examining whether the allegations in the complaint against Read More…
by Robert H. de Flesco III, Esq.
Insurance carriers can breathe a little easier. The Eleventh Circuit recently ruled, in EmbroidMe.com, Inc. v. Travelers Property & Casualty Co. of America, that an insurer did not have to pay attorneys’ fees incurred by its insured before the insured notified it of the litigation.
Most, if not all, commercial general liability policies contain a workers’ compensation exclusion, which have been widely interpreted to exclude claims made by employees directly against their employers.[i] However, that exclusion can be avoided in certain circumstances where a party that was liable for the employee’s injuries seeks indemnity back against the employer, as outlined in a recent South Florida case.[ii]
In Mid-Continent Casualty Company v. James T. Treace, 41 Fla. L. Weekly D60c (Fla. 5th DCA Dec. 31, 2015), Florida’s Fifth District Court of Appeal recently held that attorney’s fees awarded to a Plaintiff in a construction defect action against an insured contractor were covered under a supplementary payment provision in a commercial general liability Read More…
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida recently issued an opinion in Altman Contractors, Inc. v. Crum & Forster Specialty Ins. Co., No. 13-80831-CIV, 2015 WL 3539755 (S.D. Fla. June 4, 2015), addressing an issue of first impression. In Altman, the Court evaluated whether an insurer has a duty to defend Read More…
David Salazar and Craig Distel recently published an article titled “Goodnight Contractors – Sanislo v. Give the Kids” analyzing the Florida Supreme Court’s February 12, 2015 decision in Sanislo v. Give the Kids the World, Inc.[1] and its potential impact on the construction industry. Their article will be appearing in the upcoming edition of The Lawyer Issue, an Read More…
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently reaffirmed Florida as an injury-in-fact trigger state in Carithers v. Mid-Continent Cas. Co., Case No. 14-11639 (11th Cir. April 7, 2015). However, the Court did not end the manifestation versus injury-in-fact debate, choosing instead not to address the appropriate trigger where it is “difficult (or impossible) to determine Read More…
Cole, Scott & Kissane’s Florida Construction Law Attorneys, David Salazar and Dave Peterson, recently obtained partial summary judgment on the duty to defend a structural engineer in a construction delay claim. This case is a winning example that the duty to defend is broader than – as well as separate and apart from – the Read More…
news categories
Archive
