Tred R. Eyerly | Insurance Law Hawaii
The policy’s earth movement exclusion barred coverage for the home damaged by large boulders rolling down from the hillside above. Sullivan v. Nationwide Affinity Ins. Co. of Am., 2021 U.S. App. LEZXIS 628 (10th Cir Jan. 11, 2021).
Plaintiffs’ home sustained extensive damage when two or three large builders rolled down a steep hillside and struck the home. The insurer, Nationwide, hired an engineering firm that determined the boulders were not influenced by meteorological conditions such as torrential rain or high winds. The report noted that rockfall hazards existed primarily due to an undercut sandstone outcrop, and evidenced by numerous rocks from rockfall events that scattered Plaintiffs’ property.
Based on the report, Nationwide denied coverage under the earth movement exclusion. The exclusion provided Nationwide did “not insure for loss caused directly or indirectly by . . . Earth Movement” and regardless of “whether or not the loss event results in widespread damage or affects a substantial area.” The policy further defined “earth movement” to include “landslide . . . or any other earth movement including earth sinking, risking or shifting.”
Plaintiffs sued and Nationwide moved for summary judgment. Plaintiffs submitted their own report which stated that a rockfall was not a landslide and the term “earth” meant soil and not rock. But the report also quoted sources suggesting that a rockfall was a type of landslide. The district court granted summary judgment to Nationwide.
There was no definitive Colorado law on whether damage caused by the rockfall was excluded under the earth movement provision. The court surveyed case law from other jurisdictions and concluded the Colorado Supreme Court would follow the cases which held that a rockfall was excluded. Further, dictionaries defined “landslide” to include the movement of rock alone. Therefore, a reasonably objective insured would read the earth movement exclusion as excluding coverage for the event here, either as a “landslide” or as “another earth movement including earth sinking, risking or shifting.”