Summary
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed summary judgment for Concord General Mutual Insurance Company in a dispute over homeowner’s insurance coverage for structural damage caused by earth movement. The court held that the policy’s earth movement exclusion and anti-concurrent-causation clause were unambiguous and excluded losses resulting from earth movement, even where a water leak allegedly contributed to the movement. The court also declined to apply the efficient proximate cause doctrine.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the homeowners policy's earth-movement exclusion was ambiguous.
- Whether the policy's coverage for losses resulting from an accidental discharge or overflow of water applied despite the earth-movement exclusion.
- Whether the earth-movement exclusion applied when the earth movement resulted from human forces or an otherwise covered water leak.
- Whether the efficient-proximate-cause doctrine required coverage despite the policy's earth-movement exclusion and anti-concurrent-causation clause.
- Whether summary judgment was proper despite factual disagreement about the cause of the earth movement.
Holdings
- The exclusion was unambiguous because it clearly excluded losses caused by any earth movement, including earth sinking, rising, or shifting caused by human or animal forces or any act of nature.
- The Perils Exception did not restore coverage because it applied only '[u]nless the loss is otherwise excluded,' and the losses were otherwise excluded by the earth-movement exclusion.
- The anti-concurrent-causation clause barred coverage because it excluded losses caused directly or indirectly by earth movement regardless of any other cause or event contributing concurrently or in any sequence to the loss.
- The court declined to adopt the efficient-proximate-cause doctrine for interpretation of the unambiguous policy and held that, even if the doctrine applied to ambiguous policies, the anti-concurrent-causation clause unambiguously negated its application here.
Key quotations
“Because the policy’s earth movement exclusion clearly applies to any earth movement, not just natural disasters, and includes earth movement resulting from human or natural forces, we conclude that, viewed “in light of what a more than casual reading of the policy would reveal to an ordinarily intelligent insured,” the policy’s earth movement exclusion is not reasonably susceptible to different interpretations.” (¶ 17)
“Distilled to its simplest path and construing the policy as a whole, the policy generally covers direct physical losses to Bibeau’s home, but it explicitly does not cover any losses caused by earth movement, which includes natural disasters as well as “any other earth movement” such as sinking, rising or shifting “caused by or resulting from human or animal forces or any act of nature.”” (¶ 20)
Factual background
Bibeau insured his Portland home under a homeowners policy issued by Concord. The home sustained extensive foundation cracks, settlement, and related structural damage exceeding $500,000. Bibeau attributed the damage to a water-line leak that displaced soil beneath the foundation, while Concord attributed it to construction on uncontrolled fill. The parties did not dispute that earth moved beneath the foundation and caused the damage.
Procedural history
Bibeau filed a claim for substantial damage to his Portland home, which Concord denied under the policy's earth-movement exclusion and anti-concurrent-causation clause. Bibeau sued in the Cumberland County Superior Court. The Superior Court granted Concord summary judgment, concluding that the losses were caused by earth movement and were unambiguously excluded. Bibeau timely appealed, and the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine affirmed.