{"id":900094,"date":"2022-06-29T15:03:01","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T21:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=900094"},"modified":"2022-06-29T15:03:05","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T21:03:05","slug":"duty-to-defend-contractors-should-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/duty-to-defend-contractors-should-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"It Doesn\u2019t Hurt to Ask: Why Construction Contractors Should Always Request a Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Matthew Guy and David Toney | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adamsandreese.com\/news-knowledge\/it-doesnt-hurt-to-ask-why-construction-contractors-should-always-request-a-defense\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Adams and Reese<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/product-malfunction-duty-to-defend\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Duty to Defend<\/a>\u201d is a term of art used to describe an insurance company\u2019s obligation to defend policyholders against claims made under a liability insurance policy. In the context of workplace injuries, a recent ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (applying Texas law) demonstrated how important it is for employers to request this defense from their insurance carriers \u2013 regardless of whether or not the employer thinks the insurance company will provide coverage.\u00a0<em>Moreno v. Sentinel Insurance Co.<\/em>\u00a0(5th Cir. 2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Construction contractors should take note of the case as a timely reminder of the importance of providing notice to insurers of claims even if they think there may not be coverage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Summary of the Case<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In July 2016, Osman Moreno fell from a ladder while working as a painter for N.F. Painting. Moreno then sued N.F. Painting and the owner of the project, Beazer Homes, for damages in Texas state court. N.F. Painting had a \u201cBusiness Owner\u2019s Policy\u201d with Sentinel Insurance but believed that the policy would not respond to Moreno\u2019s suit because it thought Moreno was its employee and, therefore, covered under worker\u2019s compensation. N.F. Painting did not contact Sentinel to request a defense under its liability policy, even when Moreno amended his claim to allege that he was an independent contractor and not an employee. However, N.F. Painting\u2019s co-defendant, Beazer Homes, did not hesitate to contact Sentinel about Moreno\u2019s suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2019, without notifying Sentinel, N.F. Painting and Moreno agreed to a $1,627,541.35 judgment. Roughly one month later, Moreno sued Sentinel for breach of contract. The case was removed to federal court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moreno argued that Sentinel breached its insurance contract with N.F. Painting because it refused to pay the agreed judgment on N.F. Painting\u2019s behalf. The trial court disagreed and dismissed Moreno\u2019s suit against Sentinel. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed, finding that N.F. Painting had not satisfied the notice requirements of its policy with Sentinel. Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit held that Sentinel had not breached its insurance contract by not defending N.F. Painting and by not paying the proposed judgment against N.F. Painting. Put differently, Sentinel could not be blamed for N.F.&#8217;s Painting\u2019s decision to handle the matter on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, the Fifth Circuit noted that Sentinel \u201cdid not have an obligation to&nbsp;<em>sua sponte<\/em>&nbsp;inject itself into the state court action\u201d and that N.F. Painting\u2019s inability to control N.F. Painting\u2019s defense of Moreno\u2019s injury claim, together with N.F. Painting\u2019s agreement to entry of judgment against it in the amount of approximately $1.6 million, constitute prejudice as a matter of law, which also defeated the claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key Takeaways<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It appears that Sentinel would have defended N.F. Painting in the suit against Moreno if N.F. Painting would have requested a defense. However, because N.F. Painting failed to ask, Sentinel was not required to defend N.F. Painting. Put another way, Sentinel had no duty to defend \u2013 unless and until \u2013 N.F. Painting requested the defense. It is worth noting that Sentinel still learned about the suit through Beazer Homes. Still, in the eyes of the Fifth Circuit, this was not sufficient \u2013 the notification had to come directly from N.F. Painting. Indeed, in the words of the Fifth Circuit, \u201cdespite having knowledge and opportunity, an insurer is not required to simply interject itself into a proceeding on its insured\u2019s behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When one of your cases is in need of a construction expert, estimates, insurance appraisal or umpire services in defect or insurance disputes &#8211; please call Advise &amp; Consult, Inc. at 888.684.8305, or email <a href=\"mailto:experts@adviseandconsult.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">experts@adviseandconsult.net<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew Guy and David Toney | Adams and Reese The \u201cDuty to Defend\u201d is a term of art used to describe an insurance company\u2019s obligation to defend policyholders against claims made under a liability insurance policy. In the context of workplace injuries, a recent ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/duty-to-defend-contractors-should-ask\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">It Doesn\u2019t Hurt to Ask: Why Construction Contractors Should Always Request a Defense<\/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":[10],"tags":[9895,11711,57],"class_list":["post-900094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-duty-to-defend","tag-advise-consult","tag-construction-contractors","tag-duty-to-defend-2","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>It Doesn\u2019t Hurt to Ask: Why Construction Contractors Should Always Request a Defense - Advise &amp; 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