MICHAEL F. SCHMIDT AND NATHAN PEPLINSKI OBTAIN SUMMARY JUDGMENT FOR A CLAIM AGAINST HARLEYSVILLE INSURANCE COMPANY FOR PROPERTY DAMAGE

O.L. Matthews, MD, PC v Harleysville Insurance Company, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Southern Division, Case No. 18-11659, Hon. Gershwin A. Drain.  The plaintiff O.L. Matthews, MD, PC filed suit against Harleysville Insurance Company seeking to recover in excess of $1 million for alleged damage to Matthews’ medical office building from an alleged roof leak.  Following discovery including depositions of experts, we filed a motion for summary judgment on the basis that coverage was excluded by multiple exclusions contained in the policy including that the policy excluded coverage for loss from wear and tear and deterioration and from faulty, inadequate or defective design, workmanship, repair, construction or maintenance and that a policy limitation precluded coverage for loss or damage to the interior of a building resulting from rain.  The plaintiff argued that the insurer must show that any exclusion was the sole and proximate cause of the loss and that there was coverage for the alleged ensuing loss resulting from the weight of rain ponding on the roof, and thus, none of the exclusions were applicable.  The trial court rejected plaintiff’s arguments and granted summary judgment agreeing with our arguments that the policy exclusions and limitations applied based upon the testimony of the roofers who worked on the roof before the incident, and the admissions made by the plaintiff’s own expert, including that the alleged ponding on the roof was caused by the excluded faulty, inadequate or defective design, workmanship, repair, construction or maintenance.  The court further held that plaintiff’s anti-concurrent causation and proximate cause arguments had been rejected by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Iroquois on the Beach v General Star Indemnity, 550 F3d 585 (6^th CA 2008).