{"id":140,"date":"2011-11-18T09:11:54","date_gmt":"2011-11-18T16:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=140"},"modified":"2011-11-18T09:11:54","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T16:11:54","slug":"illinois-court-holds-no-duty-to-defend-water-intrusion-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/illinois-court-holds-no-duty-to-defend-water-intrusion-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois court holds no duty to defend water intrusion claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brian Margolies &#8211; November 11, 2011<\/p>\n<p>In its recent decision Lagestee-Mulder, Inc. v. Consol. Ins. Co., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129308 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 8, 2011), the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois addressed what allegations must be made in a construction defect lawsuit in order to trigger coverage under a general liability policy.<\/p>\n<p>Lagestee, the general contractor on a construction project, was named as a defendant in a construction defect suit.\u00a0 It sought coverage as additional insured under a commercial general liability policy issued to one of its subcontractors by Consolidated Insurance Company.\u00a0 Consolidated denied coverage to Lagestee on the basis that the underlying suit did not allege property damage, but instead was limited to seeking a remedy of the alleged construction defects.\u00a0 Notably, the suit did not allege any particular third-party property damage, although it did allege that as a result of certain of the defects, water was allowed to infiltrate the building.\u00a0 The suit did not, however, identify any particular damage resulting from the water instrusion.<\/p>\n<p>The court began its analysis by noting that Illinois court have long recognized the rule that \u201c[w]here the underlying suit alleges damage to the construction project itself due to a construction defect, there is no coverage; by contrast, where the underlying suit alleges that the construction defect damaged something other than the project itself, there is coverage.\u201d\u00a0 As such, explained the court, the absence of any allegation of specific third-party property damage resulting from the alleged would be fatal to Lagestee\u2019s claim for coverage.\u00a0 Lagestee acknowledged that the underlying suit did not allege third-party property damage per se, as the suit related primarily to use of defective construction materials and faulty workmanship.\u00a0 Lagestee nevertheless argued that a duty to defend was triggered by the water intrusion allegations, since the presence of water at the building raised the potential for resulting property damage.<\/p>\n<p>The court disagreed, concluding that while \u201c[i]t is true that the underlying complaint does not disavow the proposition that the water infiltration damaged something other than the building itself \u2026 the mere possibility that such damage occurred does not trigger a duty to defend under Illinois law.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, a court is not permitted under Illinois law to speculate as to what damages might have result from alleged water infiltration.\u00a0 Rather, the duty to defend is determined based solely on the damages actually alleged.\u00a0 Because the underlying suit did not identify any particular damage resulting from the water infiltration, but instead alleged only that the defective construction allowed for water infiltration, it was not permissible for the court to speculate that such infiltration could result in covered property damage.\u00a0 Thus, concluded the court, Consolidated did not have a duty to defend Lagestee in the underlying suit.<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lexology.com\/library\/detail.aspx?g=382b138e-2a31-4e15-8d49-0dd9111a2861&amp;utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&amp;utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+Other+states+section&amp;utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&amp;utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2011-11-18&amp;utm_term=\">Illinois court holds no duty to defend water intrusion claim &#8211; Lexology<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brian Margolies &#8211; November 11, 2011 In its recent decision Lagestee-Mulder, Inc. v. Consol. Ins. Co., 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129308 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 8, 2011), the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois addressed what allegations must be made in a construction defect lawsuit in order to trigger coverage under a&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/illinois-court-holds-no-duty-to-defend-water-intrusion-claim\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Illinois court holds no duty to defend water intrusion claim<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,4,10,3,15],"tags":[24,57,56,55],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-2","category-construction-defects","category-duty-to-defend","category-insurance-claims","category-product-liability","tag-construction-defect","tag-duty-to-defend-2","tag-property-damage","tag-water-intrusion","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Illinois court holds no duty to defend water intrusion claim - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/illinois-court-holds-no-duty-to-defend-water-intrusion-claim\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Illinois court holds no duty to defend water intrusion claim - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Brian Margolies &#8211; November 11, 2011 In its recent decision Lagestee-Mulder, Inc. v. 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