Godwin v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 83463-1-I

• Docket Number: 83463-1-I
• Decision Date: 16 May 2022
• Citation: 518 P.3d 1045
• Parties: Kelly GODWIN, an Individual, Appellant, v. STATE FARM FIRE & CASUALTY COMPANY, an Illinois Corporation doing business in Washington, Respondent.
• Court: Washington Court of Appeals

518 P.3d 1045

Kelly GODWIN, an Individual, Appellant,
v.
STATE FARM FIRE & CASUALTY COMPANY, an Illinois Corporation doing business in Washington, Respondent.

No. 83463-1-I

Court of Appeals of Washington, Division 1.

Filed May 16, 2022
Ordered Published Date July 18, 2022

Neal Ernest Bonrud Jr., Law Offices of Neal Bonrud PLLC, 1312 N. Monroe St., Suite 98, Spokane, WA, 99201, for Appellant.

Michael Simpson Rogers, Reed McClure, 1215 4th Ave. Ste. 1700, Seattle, WA, 98161-1087, for Respondent.

Andrus, C.J.

¶1 Kelly Godwin filed a claim with State Farm under her homeowner's insurance policy after her roof was damaged by a windstorm. State Farm agreed to cover repairs to the portion of the roof damaged by the storm. Godwin sued State Farm for breach of contract, arguing that her policy required the insurer to pay to replace the entire roof. The trial court granted summary judgment for State Farm and Godwin appealed. Because the policy at issue is unambiguous and does not obligate State Farm to pay to replace the undamaged portion of Godwin's roof, we affirm.

FACTS

¶2 In August 2015, Kelly Godwin purchased a Tudor-style house built in 1934 in Port Orchard, Washington. She insured the house with a homeowner's policy issued by State Farm. In December 2018, a windstorm blew some shingles off of Godwin's roof. She reported the damage to State Farm in March 2019.

¶3 Godwin hired Keith Delgado of Patriot Roofing to perform the repairs. Delgado testified that he inspected the roof and determined that it had sustained wind damage on the ridge and front half of the house, but not on the back slope. Delgado prepared a report in which he opined that "[t]he existing [shingles] on the house are at their end of life and need[ ] to be replaced." He prepared a proposal

518 P.3d 1047

for a full roof replacement, including replacing all of the old asphalt composite shingles with comparable "Certainteed Landmark" asphalt shingles; installing a new underlayment and ice and water shield in the valleys, roof penetrations, and chimney; installing a new baffled ridge vent system to generate airflow from the attic; removing old roof vents no longer needed; removing roof sheeting in places to install baffles to ensure the attic insulation was not blocking airflow in the attic; installing double insulated hoses in the bath fan exhausts and flapper vents, new chimney flashing and counter-flashing; new safety roof anchors and all new steel drip edges on the eaves to facilitate water runoff; and replacing old neoprene boots around plumbing vents with new metal ones. Delgado's cost estimate for this work was $20,628.08. Godwin accepted Delgado's proposal and his company replaced her roof consistent with it.

¶4 On March 21, 2019, Godwin filed a claim with State Farm and Delgado sent his report and cost proposal to the insurer to support her claim. According to State Farm, it agreed to pay to replace "all of the shingles on the [roof] slope that had been damaged." It refused to pay to replace the entire roof because the back slope had not lost any shingles.¹

¶5 Godwin filed this suit for insurance bad faith, breach of contract, and a violation of the Consumer Protection Act.² State Farm moved for summary judgment, arguing that Godwin's homeowners’ policy was unambiguous and required it to cover only repairs to the damaged portion of her roof. In response, Godwin submitted a declaration from Delgado who testified that the shingles on Godwin's roof "were at the end of their useful life and could not be matched for color or condition due to age and fading."³ Delgado confirmed that no permit was required for his replacement work because Kitsap County does not require a permit when less than 2,100 square feet of roofing materials are being replaced on a single family residence.

¶6 The trial court granted State Farm's motion for summary judgment. Godwin appeals.

ANALYSIS

¶7 Godwin argues the trial court erred in granting summary judgment for State Farm because the policy provision requiring the insurer to repair or replace the "damaged part of the property," extends to the entire roof. Godwin separately argues that the policy language requiring State Farm make repairs with "similar construction" obligated it to match new shingles with the old, and if no shingles exist to provide a uniform appearance, the insurer had to replace the entire roof. Finally, Godwin contends there are genuine issue of material fact as to whether the policy required State Farm to pay to replace the entire roof to comply with building code requirements under a separate provision of the policy.

¶8 We conclude the State Farm policy is unambiguous and only required State Farm to pay to repair the portion of the roof that sustained wind damage and did not require it to replace Godwin's entire roof.

¶9 Appellate courts review a summary judgment order de novo and perform the same inquiry as the trial court. Kut Suen Lui v. Essex Ins. Co., 185 Wash.2d 703, 709-10, 375 P.3d 596 (2016). Interpretation of an insurance contract is also a question of law we review de novo. Id. at 710, 375 P.3d 596. When we interpret an insurance policy, we

518 P.3d 1048

consider it as a whole, giving it a fair, reasonable, and sensible construction as would be given to the contract by the average person purchasing insurance. Id. Where a term is undefined, we assigned it its ordinary meaning. Vision One, LLC v. Philadelphia Indem. Ins. Co., 174 Wash.2d 501, 512, 276 P.3d 300 (2012). Ambiguities and exclusions are construed against the insurer. Id. We harmonize clauses that seem to conflict in order to give effect to all of the contract's provisions. Kut Suen Lui, 185 Wash.2d at 710, 375 P.3d 596.

"The damaged part of the property"

¶10 The parties agree that Godwin's policy covered "accidental direct physical loss," including wind damage, and excluded losses caused by "wear, tear, marring, scratching, deterioration, inherent vice, latent defect, or mechanical breakdown." Godwin contends that State Farm was required to replace her entire roof, including those portions of the roof not damaged in the wind storm, under Coverage A1, entitled "Replacement Cost Loss Settlement." The provision at issue provided:

a. We will pay the cost to repair or replace with similar construction and for the same use on the premises shown in the Declarations, the damaged part of the property ..., subject to the following:

(1) until actual repair or replacement is completed, we will pay only the actual cash value at the time of the loss of the damaged part of the property, ... not to exceed the cost to repair or replace the damaged part of the property;

(2) when the repair or replacement is actually completed, we will pay the covered additional amount you actually and necessarily spend to repair or replace the damaged part of the property, or an amount up to the applicable limit of liability shown in the Declarations, whichever is less.

(Emphasis added).

¶11 Godwin contends that the phrase "the damaged part of the property" in this section of the policy means the entire roof of her home because it was her roof that sustained wind damage. We reject this interpretation as not a fair, reasonable, or sensible construction of the policy. Nothing in the policy requires the insurer to treat the roof as an indivisible part of the covered property. Where only a portion of the roof is damaged, a reasonable consumer of an insurance policy would interpret the policy to provide coverage only for the damaged portion. The undamaged slope of the roof is unambiguously not "the damaged part of the property."

¶12 Godwin relies on Erie Insurance Exchange v. Sams, 20 N.E. 3d 182 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) to support her argument that "the damaged part of the property" should be interpreted as entitling her to a new roof. But the evidence in Sams is much different from the evidence here. In that case, after sustaining roof damage in a wind storm, the Sams family filed a claim with their insurer. Id. at 185. The policy there stated that "[p]ayment will not exceed ... the replacement cost of that part of the dwelling damaged." Id. at 186. The parties disputed, among other issues, whether the policy required Erie to pay for the replacement of the shingles on the damaged portion of the roof only, or whether it needed to replace the entire roof. Id. After trial, the court found that the wind storm caused the entire roof to leak, and that it was "an unsound roof after the loss, with leaks [in] many places on the roof." Id. at 188.

¶13 On appeal, Erie argued that "part of the dwelling damaged" meant only the individual roof slopes sustaining direct physical damage during the storm and not the whole roof. Id. at 191. But the court disagreed. It concluded

The trial court based its judgment on the evidence the parties introduced, and the court's judgment is well within the evidence presented. Therefore, under these specific facts, and based on the evidence presented in this case, the court's judgment that the replacement cost of the Samses' damaged roof ... was not clearly erroneous.

Id. at 192. The outcome of the case was, therefore, highly fact-specific.

¶14 Unlike Erie, Godwin presented no evidence that the wind storm damage rendered her entire roof unsound. Godwin provided

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