{"id":898254,"date":"2020-11-25T10:32:26","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T17:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=898254"},"modified":"2020-11-25T10:32:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T17:32:30","slug":"water-backup-exclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/water-backup-exclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Disagreement Does Not Mean Ambiguity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Michelle Gaston | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.steptoe-johnson.com\/disagreement-does-not-mean-ambiguity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Steptoe &amp; Johnson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>West Virginia Supreme Court Upholds Water Backup Exclusion<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia recently found an exclusion for loss or damage caused by \u201cwater that backs up or overflows from a sewer, drain, or sump\u201d pump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/versus-one-word-makes-profound-difference-insurance-contract\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">clear and unambiguous<\/a>.\u00a0 The Court overturned the policyholder\u2019s award of summary judgment and found there was no coverage under the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/insurance-on-construction-projects\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">commercial property insurance policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In&nbsp;<em>Motorists Mut. Ins. Co. v. Zukoff&nbsp;<\/em>, the building where the Zukoffs\u2019 business, Accessories Ltd., was located in Moundsville, West Virginia was flooded by sewage.&nbsp; An employee of the Moundsville Sanitary Board was advised that a resident heard a \u201cgurgling\u201d in the basement, indicative of a clogged line.&nbsp; The employee injected water into the line to clean it out, and the level returned to normal.&nbsp; A few minutes later, the employee was advised that sewage was coming out of the clean outs in front of Accessories Ltd.&nbsp; When inserting a hose to clean out the line did not work, the employee and his supervisor located the blockage and the employee used his hands to remove it.&nbsp; By the time the line was unclogged,&nbsp; however, Accessories Ltd. had suffered damage for which it&nbsp;sought coverage under its commercial property policy issued by Motorists Mutual Insurance Company.&nbsp; The insurer denied coverage pursuant to the water backup exclusion.&nbsp; The policyholder filed a declaratory judgment action and the circuit court awarded it summary judgment finding that because the phrase \u201cbacks up\u201d was not defined, the policy was ambiguous and the doctrine of \u201creasonable expectations\u201d was to be applied.&nbsp; Although the circuit court held that it was not reasonable to expect coverage if the source of the water and sewage backup was on the premises, the court found that it was reasonable to expect coverage if the source was off of the insured premises.&nbsp; Because the source of the subject back up was external, the court found the water backup exclusion inapplicable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The West Virginia Court reversed.&nbsp; The Court stated that simply because the insurance policy did not define the phrase \u201cbacks up,\u201d the policy was not ambiguous.&nbsp; The Court cited a 2006 decision from the Kanawha County Circuit Court,&nbsp;<em>Sylvania Props., LLC v. S. Putnam Pub. Serv. Dist<\/em>. where the trial court held that a similar insurance policy exclusion was clear and unambiguous.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, the Court noted that the Motorists Mutual exclusion applied to water that \u201coverflows,\u201d which was also an unambiguous term.&nbsp; The Court stated \u201cno matter how the entry of water into the premises from the sewer was described, a plain reading of the policy language clearly shows that a person would understand that coverage for this loss would be excluded where water \u201cback[ed] up\u201d and \u201cover flow[ed]\u201d into the Accessories Ltd. premises.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.steptoe-johnson.com\/sites\/default\/files\/Motorists_v_Zukoff.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Click here to read the full&nbsp;<em>Motorists Mut. Ins. Co. v. Zukoff<\/em>&nbsp;decision<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michelle Gaston | Steptoe &amp; Johnson West Virginia Supreme Court Upholds Water Backup Exclusion The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia recently found an exclusion for loss or damage caused by \u201cwater that backs up or overflows from a sewer, drain, or sump\u201d pump clear and unambiguous.\u00a0 The Court overturned the policyholder\u2019s award of&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/water-backup-exclusion\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Disagreement Does Not Mean Ambiguity<\/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":[10791],"tags":[9895,4739,11362,8324],"class_list":["post-898254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commercial-general-liability-policy","tag-advise-consult","tag-commercial-general-liability-policy","tag-water-backup-exclusion","tag-west-virginia","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>Disagreement Does Not Mean Ambiguity - Advise &amp; 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