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Saturday, August 22, 2015
First Circuit holds faulty workmanship exclusion does not apply to work done before insureds owned building
In my last post I discussed Fidelity Co-operative Bank v. Nova Casualty Co., __ F.3d __, 2013 WL 4016361 (1st. Cir. 2013), in which the court held that there was coverage for a flooded roof because the proximate efficient cause of the loss was the failure of a roof drain, a covered loss, not the rainwater that accumulated on the roof, an excluded loss.
The insurer, Nova, also denied coverage of the basis of a faulty workmanship exclusion, asserting that the inadequacy of the roof's drainage system was faulty workmanship.
The United State Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that the faulty workmanship exclusion did not apply. It held that the exclusion was "intended to prevent the expansion of coverage under the policy to insuring the quality of a contractual undertaking by the insured or someone authorized by him." The record showed that the roof was repaired prior to the insureds' ownership and that the insureds did not repair, renovate or replace the roof or its drain.
