Last Friday, a unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit held that loss from the excluded peril of mudslide occurring one month after a wildfire could be covered as the “direct” result of the blaze. In Stankova v. Metropolitan Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., 2015 WL 3429395, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 8935 (9th Cir., May 29, 2015), it reached that result even though Arizona has not adopted the efficient proximate cause rule, saying that it did not need to apply that doctrine to determine that the mudslide “could have been directly and proximately caused by the wildfire.” It also blithely ignored anti-concurrent causation (ACC) language, which is given effect in Arizona, as “inconsistent with Arizona’s standard fire insurance policy, which insures…
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Ninth Circuit: Under Arizona Law Mudslide Can Be Covered as the Direct Result of Fire
Tagged with: Arizona, Ninth Circuit
Posted in Anti-Concurrent Causation, Causation, Direct Physical Loss or Damage, Efficient Proximate Cause, Exclusions, Flood, Mudslide, Wildfire
Posted in Anti-Concurrent Causation, Causation, Direct Physical Loss or Damage, Efficient Proximate Cause, Exclusions, Flood, Mudslide, Wildfire
Arizona Court: Argument that All Business Income Loss Caused by a Wildfire is Covered is “Off Base”
Several weeks ago in White Mt. Communities Hosp., Inc. v. Hartford Cas. Ins. Co., 2015 WL 1755372, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50900 (D. Ariz., Apr. 17, 2015), an Arizona federal court underscored that business interruption losses flowing from a wildfire are only covered to the extent that they stem directly from physical loss or damage to the policyholder’s property. In other words, loss of income due to the fire in general is beyond the scope of such coverage absent a causal nexus with repairs necessitated by the blaze. The policyholder White Mountain owned a hospital in Springerville, Arizona. On May 29, 2011, a blaze was started by an abandoned campfire in the nearby Bear Wallow Wilderness Area. The wildfire ultimately…
Tagged with: Arizona
Posted in Business Interuption, Causation, Contamination, Direct Physical Loss or Damage, Fire, Smoke and Soot, Wildfire
Posted in Business Interuption, Causation, Contamination, Direct Physical Loss or Damage, Fire, Smoke and Soot, Wildfire
