Daniel Lund III | Phelps Dunbar
During construction of a movie theater in New York, an employee of a subcontractor was seriously injured by a co-employee operating a forklift. The injured employee sued the general contractor and the project and property owners for his injuries.
The general contract had the typical insurance clauses in it, requiring the GC to obtain CGL insurance naming the owners as “additional insureds for claims caused by [GC’s] negligent acts or omissions.” Likewise, the subcontract entered by the plaintiff’s employer required the sub to secure the same type of insurance, naming the GC as additional insured and naming that policy as “primary,” priming the GC’s own CGL insurance. Additionally, the subcontract required the sub to provide umbrella liability insurance “as broad as the primary General Liability” policy.
The sub’s CGL insurer agreed to defend the general contractor as an additional insured but refused to treat the owners as additional insured parties. Additionally, the sub’s insurer took the position that the umbrella policy was excess over all available insurance, including the GC’s CGL policy.
Concerning the owners as additional insureds under the sub’s policy, the court noted that the subcontract incorporated all of the GC’s obligations under the general contract, including the requirement that the owners be named as additional insureds. However, applying Virginia law (the law specified in the subcontract, although the court notes New York law would provide the same result), the court, refusing to declare the owners to be additional insured parties, held:
“The incorporation clause in the Subcontract does not require the subcontractor to assume all obligations of the general contractor, but only those relating to the nature or scope of the work undertaken by the subcontractor. … [T]he insurance clause in the General Contract here does not directly relate to the nature or scope of the masonry work to be performed by [the sub]. And… there is no mention elsewhere in the Subcontract that [the sub] is required to name the Owners as additional insureds. In fact, Section 4 of the Subcontract, which describes [the sub’s] obligations with respect to procuring insurance, specifies that [the GC] must be named as an additional insured, but omits any reference to adding the Owners as additional insureds. … Under these circumstances, we conclude that the Subcontract did not incorporate by reference [the GC’s] obligation to name the Owners as additional insureds.”
The court likewise refused the request to have the umbrella policy prime the GC’s CGL policy: “[T]he ‘as broad’ language invoked by [the GC’s CGL insurer] is more easily understood to qualify only the scope of coverage (e.g., what risks are covered), not the priority of coverage.” The court also found that the language in the competing policies (the “other insurance” clause in the GC’s CGL policy and the sub’s umbrella policy language on how excess insurance functions) supported the court’s holding. (The court also resisted an argument based upon the indemnity agreement in the subcontract – that the indemnity agreement could “override the terms of an insurance policy concerning priority of coverage” – as being raised too late, and by otherwise determining that the indemnity provision was likely void under Virginia law.)
Amerisure Ins. Co. v. Selective Ins. Grp., Inc., 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 11332 (2d Cir. May 9, 2023)
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