{"id":857238,"date":"2015-07-17T06:37:33","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T12:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=857238"},"modified":"2015-07-14T11:52:07","modified_gmt":"2015-07-14T17:52:07","slug":"texas-court-rejects-ambiguity-arguments-bottomed-on-a-single-phrase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/texas-court-rejects-ambiguity-arguments-bottomed-on-a-single-phrase\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Court Rejects Ambiguity Arguments Bottomed on a Single Phrase"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dick Bennett | Property Insurance Law Observer | July 7, 2015<\/p>\n<p>Last Thursday in King v. Burwell, 2015 WL 2473448, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 4248 (U.S., Jun. 25, 2015), Chief Justice Roberts explained that \u201c[a] provision that may seem ambiguous in isolation is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme\u201d when construing a law.\u00a0 In the same fashion, it is inappropriate to find ambiguity residing in a single phrase in a contract of insurance when the meaning can be clarified by referring to the policy as a whole.\u00a0 That was the teaching of a recent opinion by a unanimous panel of Texas\u2019 intermediate level appellate court in 3109 Props. L.L.C. v. Truck Ins. Exch., 2015 WL 3827580, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 6146 (Tex.Ct.App., Jun. 18, 2015).<\/p>\n<p>The insured was filmmaker Richard Linklater, the director of over a dozen films including Matthew McConaughey\u2019s debut, the 1993 coming of age comedy Dazed and Confused.\u00a0 Linklater had a $500,000 archive of his various film projects in a building in Paige, Texas.\u00a0 In September of 2011, that was destroyed by the Bastrop County Complex Fire, a 32,000-acre inferno that did $325 million in insured property damage in southeast Texas; it is still the state\u2019s most destructive blaze.<\/p>\n<p>Linklater made claim for business personal property loss under a commercial property policy issued by Truck Insurance Exchange.\u00a0 The contract of insurance contained a declarations page that listed the coverage types afforded (liability, auto, and property), and the line for \u201cLocation of Premises\u201d on that form was blank.\u00a0 It also contained:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a renewal certificate whose \u201cDescription of Premises\u201d was an Austin, Texas location on 51st Street; and<\/li>\n<li>a supplement declarations form whose \u201cDescription of Premises\u201d was another Austin location on Interstate 35.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The insured denied liability because the archive was not at a \u201cDescribed Location,\u201d and a lawsuit followed.\u00a0 The trial court granted summary judgment to the insurer, and Linklater then took an appeal, arguing:\u00a0 (1) that the policy had no geographic limitation and therefore covered all of his business personal property regardless of its location because the declarations page did not specify a particular location; and, in the alternative, (2) that the contract of insurance was ambiguous and should be construed in favor of coverage.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, the Court of Appeals rejected both contentions and affirmed.\u00a0 As Justice David Puryear\u2019s decision explained, Linklater\u2019s contentions were unavailing because they required that the court \u201clook only at one page of the policy and ignore the other parts[.]\u201d\u00a0 According to the opinion, the declarations page<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>is the cover page for the entire policy, which includes not only commercial property coverage, but also commercial general liability and automobile coverage, whereas the \u201cSupplemental Declarations\u201d page and the . . . \u201cRenewal Certificate\u201d are specific to the policy\u2019s commercial property coverage, which is what would cover business personal property.\u00a0 It is nonsensical to ignore the declarations specific to the policy being construed when attempting to discern what property that policy covers[.] . . . . [T]he omission of a property description in the .\u00a0 . . Declarations page does not render the commercial property policy ambiguous.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The court also shot down the insured\u2019s attempts to invoke coverage for the archive under the contract of insurance\u2019s \u201cNewly Acquired or Constructed Property\u201d provision.\u00a0 That extended coverage to \u201cBusiness Personal Property at any location you acquire within the Coverage Territory.\u201d\u00a0 In the words of the court, the policyholder\u2019s argument<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>ignores the active nature of the dynamic verb \u201cacquire.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cAcquire\u201d means \u201cto gain possession or control of something; to get or to obtain.\u201d . . . By contrast, \u201cown\u201d is a stative verb that means \u201cto rightfully have or possess as property; to have a legal right to.\u201d . . . The verb \u201cacquire\u201d represents an action \u2014 that of obtaining \u2014 whereas the verb \u201cown\u201d represents a state \u2013 that of possession.\u00a0 Section 5(a)(2)(a)(i) extends coverage to business personal property at locations Linklater acquires \u2014 i.e., gets or obtains \u2014 during the policy period.\u00a0 It does not extend coverage to business personal property at all locations Linklater already owned when the policy period commenced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to Justice Puryear, any contrary reading of the language at issue \u201cwould render the policy\u2019s geographic limitations on covered business personal property meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/propertyinsurancelawobserver.com\/2015\/07\/07\/texas-court-rejects-ambiguity-arguments-bottomed-on-a-single-phrase\/\">Texas Court Rejects Ambiguity Arguments Bottomed on a Single Phrase | Cozen O&#8217;Connor&#8217;s Property Insurance Law Observer<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dick Bennett | Property Insurance Law Observer | July 7, 2015 Last Thursday in King v. Burwell, 2015 WL 2473448, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 4248 (U.S., Jun. 25, 2015), Chief Justice Roberts explained that \u201c[a] provision that may seem ambiguous in isolation is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme\u201d when construing a law.\u00a0&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/texas-court-rejects-ambiguity-arguments-bottomed-on-a-single-phrase\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Texas Court Rejects Ambiguity Arguments Bottomed on a Single Phrase<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[3,56],"class_list":["post-857238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance-claims","tag-insurance-claims","tag-property-damage","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>Texas Court Rejects Ambiguity Arguments Bottomed on a Single Phrase - 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\/texas-court-rejects-ambiguity-arguments-bottomed-on-a-single-phrase\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Texas Court Rejects Ambiguity Arguments Bottomed on a Single Phrase - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dick Bennett | Property Insurance Law Observer | July 7, 2015 Last Thursday in King v. 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