Tred R. Eyerly | Insurance Law Hawaii
The court found that the insured’s negligent acts causing damage to only the structure of the home it built were not covered under the CGL policy. Westfield Ins. Co. v. Zaremba Builders II LLC, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36189 (N.D. Ill. March 2, 2022).
Zaremba contracted to build a house for the Vrdolyak Trust. After completion of the home, the occupants found many problems, including painting defects such as bubbling and peeling, leaving the basement full of water for months, causing damage to ductwork, framing and piping in the house, etc. The Trust sued and Westfield denied a defense.
Westfield filed a declaratory judgment action for a ruling that it had no duty to defend or indemnify. On Westfield’s motion for summary judgment, the court determined there was no property damage. Property damage included “physical injury to tangible property.” When the alleged damage occurred in the course of a construction project, tangible property had to be property outside the scope of the contract for project.
Zaremba’s construction project encompassed the entire home. The underlying complaint alleged only damage to the structure itself, or damage that fell within the scope of Zaremba’s contract. All the alleged damage constituted damage to the very house Zaremba was contracted to build. Therefore, it did not quality as “property damage” under the policy.
Zaremba argued he purchased Products-Completed Operations coverage. But purchase of the coverage did not mean that, once the project is complete, any damage to the project itself was covered. While the Products-Completed Operations provision extended the grant of coverage in the insuring agreement to completed products or operations, it remained limited by the terms of that grant of coverage. Here, the insuring agreement required that an “occurrence” result in “property damage’ to trigger coverage. There was no property damage here when the underlying complaint alleged only construction defects causing damage within the scope of the contracted-for project.
Therefore, summary judgment was granted to Westfield.
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