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Monday, December 21, 2015
US District Court holds that failure of temporary patches does not prove faulty workmanship
I have been writing about General Casualty Co. of Wisconsin v. Five Star Building Corp., 2013 WL 5297095 (D. Mass.), in which rainwater penetrated temporary roof patches placed there by Five Star during HVAC work it was doing for UMass.
Five Star's insurer argued that coverage was excluded by an exclusion for property damage "to that particular part of any property that must be restored, repaired or replaced because 'your work' was incorrectly performed on it." The insurer argued that the fact that the temporary patches failed to keep out rainwater shows that Five Star's work was incorrectly performed. The court rejected that argument because it assumes either a strict liability or breach of contract theory of faulty workmanship.
