{"id":896905,"date":"2020-01-02T10:08:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T17:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=896905"},"modified":"2020-01-02T10:08:29","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T17:08:29","slug":"triggering-additional-insured-obligation-when-sub-immune-from-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/triggering-additional-insured-obligation-when-sub-immune-from-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"Construction Coverage &#8211; Triggering the Additional Insured Obligation When the Subcontractor Is Immune From Suit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Lisa C. Wood, Gregory T. Dennison and Piel A. Lora | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lexology.com\/library\/detail.aspx?g=585794f0-a364-4e42-ac21-fb03b16d8279&amp;utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&amp;utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&amp;utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&amp;utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2019-12-23&amp;utm_term=\">Saiber<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Construction site owners and contractors can find it difficult to secure bargained-for additional insured coverage when the plaintiff is the subcontractor\u2019s employee and subject to the worker\u2019s compensation bar. Courts continue to struggle with how to determine if a defense is owed under the subcontractor\u2019s policy for a complaint that does not expressly allege that the bodily injury was \u201ccaused by\u201d the named insured\u2019s \u201cacts or omissions\u201d or other qualifying fault-based conduct. Two recent decisions in New York and Pennsylvania demonstrate varying approaches to the duty to defend designed to circumvent the traditional \u201cfour corners\u201d of the pleading analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>United Specialty Ins. Co. v. Lux Maint. &amp; Ren. Corp.<\/em>, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 201805 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 20, 2019) held that the owners of a construction project could trigger fault-based additional insured coverage by their own self-serving third-party complaint. Although the plaintiff was barred from bringing negligence claims against the employer-subcontractor, the owners pled the requisite acts and omissions in their third-party complaint for indemnification.&nbsp;<em>United Specialty&nbsp;<\/em>held that the third-party allegations were sufficient to establish a legal and factual basis upon which the subcontractor\u2019s insurer could have a duty to indemnify and triggered its defense obligation. Other jurisdictions have rejected this approach.&nbsp;<em>See,<\/em>&nbsp;<em>e.g., Pekin Ins. Co. v. Ill. Cement Co., Ltd. Liab. Co.<\/em>, 51 N.E.3d 812 (Ill. Ct. App. 3d 2016)(\u201cself-serving\u201d third-party complaint insufficient to trigger additional insured coverage from employer-subcontractor).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pennsylvania, a strict \u201cfour corners\u201d jurisdiction, did not consider allegations in a declaratory judgment complaint against the subcontractor\u2019s insurer and focused on inferences of the subcontractor\u2019s negligence to trigger the additional insured coverage.&nbsp;<em>Precision Underground Pipe Servs. v. Penn Nat&#8217;l Mut. Cas. &amp; Verizon Pa., LLC<\/em>, 2019 Pa. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 4486 (Dec. 3, 2019).&nbsp;<em>Precision&nbsp;<\/em>carefully reviewed the tort complaint, which alleged that the owner and contractor had a duty to protect the subcontractor\u2019s employees \u201cfrom unreasonably dangerous conditions caused by&nbsp;<em>its conduct<\/em>&nbsp;and\/or failure to act.\u201d The court reasoned that the phrase \u201cits conduct\u201d referred to the subcontractor\u2019s conduct, and therefore implied that the subcontractor was responsible for the dangerous condition that caused plaintiff\u2019s injuries.&nbsp;<em>Precision&nbsp;<\/em>rejected the notion that \u201covert\u201d allegations of negligence were required to implicate the subcontractor\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Takeaway<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Claim professionals pursuing risk transfer in a construction site bodily injury claim should be mindful of the trigger analysis applied by the jurisdiction in which the claim is pending. New York\u2019s approach allows counsel for the putative additional insured to craft a third-party pleading that incorporates specific allegations of negligence against the subcontractor to trigger fault-based additional insured coverage. Pennsylvania\u2019s approach leaves the putative additional insured more at the mercy of the plaintiff\u2019s pleading. If the employer-subcontractor\u2019s negligence cannot be inferred, the claims professional should carefully monitor the development of discovery for factual evidence to support the additional insured claim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lisa C. Wood, Gregory T. Dennison and Piel A. Lora | Saiber Construction site owners and contractors can find it difficult to secure bargained-for additional insured coverage when the plaintiff is the subcontractor\u2019s employee and subject to the worker\u2019s compensation bar. Courts continue to struggle with how to determine if a defense is owed under&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/triggering-additional-insured-obligation-when-sub-immune-from-suit\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Construction Coverage &#8211; Triggering the Additional Insured Obligation When the Subcontractor Is Immune From Suit<\/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":[9914],"tags":[382,9895],"class_list":["post-896905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance-coverage","tag-additional-insured","tag-advise-consult","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>Construction Coverage - Triggering the Additional Insured Obligation When the Subcontractor Is Immune From Suit - Advise &amp; 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