Florida Court Rejects Claim Replacement Of Undamaged Property Is Necessary For Aesthetic Uniformity

Late last week a federal court in Florida tossed a condominium association’s claims that it was entitled to replace undamaged hallway carpeting, wallpaper, baseboards, and woodwork in order to “achieve aesthetic uniformity” with similar hallway components replaced after water damage.  In Great Amer. Ins. Co. v. Towers of Quayside No. 4 Condominium Ass’n., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150358, 2015 WL 6773870 (S.D. Fla., Nov. 4, 2015), the court held that replacing undamaged property to insure “matching” is only appropriate if the repairs concern “a continuous run” of items such as that. The policyholder owned a 25-story condominium building in Miami.  There was a tiled elevator landing on each floor separating the east and west hallways, and those portions of the…