{"id":775,"date":"2014-12-28T11:15:53","date_gmt":"2014-12-28T11:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/?p=775"},"modified":"2023-04-20T13:20:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T17:20:02","slug":"2014-year-review-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/beyond-appeals\/2014-year-review-insurance\/","title":{"rendered":"2014 Year in Review &#8211; Insurance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.courts.ri.gov\/Courts\/SupremeCourt\/Opinions\/13-129.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nunez v. Merrimack Mutual Fire Ins. Co., 88 A.3d 1146 (R.I. 2014)<\/a>:\u00a0 In Nunez, an insurance coverage decision, the Rhode Island Supreme Court held that the property damage at issue, which was caused by corrosion, was not covered by the plaintiffs\u2019 insurance policy.<\/p>\n<p>In that case, the homeowner plaintiffs initiated a claim under their homeowners\u2019 insurance policy when the oil heating system in their basement began to leak. The insurance company\u2019s investigator concluded that the leak may have occurred over time and noted that the feed line was severely corroded in several areas. He further indicated that the feed line had a very slow, weeping, corrosion leak. After receiving a report of the investigator\u2019s conclusions, the insurance company denied the plaintiffs\u2019 claim, relying on a provision in the insurance policy that excluded coverage for losses caused by \u201c[s]mog, rust or other corrosion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiffs, however, maintained that the loss was covered, relying on a provision that provided coverage for \u201c[s]udden and accidental tearing apart, cracking, burning or bulging of a steam or hot water heating system, an air conditioning or automatic fire protective sprinkler system, or an appliance for heating water.\u201d The plaintiffs argued that the release of oil from the feed line was unexpected or unforeseen from their standpoint and, therefore, a \u201csudden\u201d loss under the policy.<\/p>\n<p>On appeal, the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiffs\u2019 argument, concluding that the exclusion was unambiguous and made it clear that the policy did not cover losses caused by corrosion. In doing so, the Court refused to \u201cwedge the loss resulting from the gradually corroded oil feed line into the category of \u2018sudden and accidental tearing apart, cracking, burning or bulging of a steam or hot water heating system.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nunez v. Merrimack Mutual Fire Ins. Co., 88 A.3d 1146 (R.I. 2014):\u00a0 In Nunez, an insurance coverage decision, the Rhode Island Supreme Court held that the property damage at issue, which was caused by corrosion, was not covered by the plaintiffs\u2019 insurance&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[18,59,14],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond-appeals","tag-appellate-practice","tag-insurance","tag-rhode-island-supreme-court"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-appeal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}