Insurance Claim – Property Damage

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WI Supreme Court

Case Name: SECURA Insurance v. Lyme St. Croix Forest Company, LLC, et al.

Case No.: 2018 WI 103

Focus: Insurance Claim – Property Damage

The petitioner, SECURA Insurance, A Mutual Company, seeks review of an unpublished, per curiam decision of the court of appeals affirming the circuit court’s interlocutory order that determined the fire at issue constituted multiple occurrences instead of a single occurrence.  The court of appeals reasoned that under Secura’s commercial general liability (CGL) policy there was an occurrence each time the fire spread to a new piece of real property and caused damage. Therefore, the court concluded that the $2 million aggregate limit applies rather than the $500,000 per-occurrence limit for property damage due to fire arising from logging and lumbering operations.

Secura asserts that the court of appeals erred, and that pursuant to the “cause theory,” the fire constitutes a single occurrence. Despite the fact that the fire crossed several property lines, Secura contends it was a single, uninterrupted cause of the alleged damages.

We conclude that the fire at issue constitutes a single occurrence pursuant to the CGL policy. Consequently, the $500,000 per-occurrence limit for property damage applies.

Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals and remand to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Reversed and Remanded

Concur:

Dissent:

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.