Tred R. Eyerly | Insurance Law Hawaii
The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order granting summary judgment to the insurer who denied coverage based upon the policy’s subsidence exclusion. Atain Spec. Ins. Co. v. JKT Associates, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6351 (9th Cir. March 11, 2022).
JKT was hired by Lora Eichner Blanusa in 2011 to perform landscape and hardscape work at her house. After selling the house to Richard Meese, a catastrophic landslide occurred in 2019. Portions of the rear of the property slid downhill by 15 feet. Meese sued JKG and others. The owner of an adjacent property, Kristi Synek, filed a separate action against JKT and others. JKT tendered both suits to Atain, who defended under a reservation of rights.
Atain filed a coverage action in federal district court regarding both underlying suits. The district court granted summary judgment to Atain, ruling there was no duty to defend or to indemnify.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The subsidence exclusion read:
This insurance does not apply and there shall be no duty to defend or indemnify any insured for any “occurrence”, “suit”, liability, claim, demand or cause of action arising, in whole or part, out of any “earth movement.” This exclusion applies whether or not the “earth movement” arises out of any operations by or on behalf of any insured.
Because a landslide was an “earth movement,” the terms of the exclusion barred any coverage for any claim “arising, in whole or pert,” from the landslide or from any “settling” or “slipping” that preceded the landslide, and did so regardless of the case of the landslide.
The Meese complaint did not allege any facts or claims concerning injuries that occurred independent of the occurrence of the landslide and the earth movement that preceded it. Nothing in the underlying complaint suggested that Meese suffered any relevant injuries that were independent of the landslide. Because all injuries connected to the Meese complaint “aris[e] in whole or part, out of . . . ‘earth movement,'” there was no possibility of coverage.
The same conclusion was reached as to the Synek complaint. JKT could not point to any allegation in the complaint that sought compensable damage flowing from the alleged encroachment apart from its subsequent contribution to the landslide.
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