Residences at Olde Town Square Ass'n v. Travelers Cas. Ins. Co. of Am.
| Decision Date | 31 December 2019 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 18-cv-0461-WJM-NYW |
| Citation | 430 F.Supp.3d 743 |
| Parties | RESIDENCES AT OLDE TOWN SQUARE ASSOCIATION, Plaintiff, v. TRAVELERS CASUALTY INSURANCE COMPANY OF AMERICA, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Colorado |
Michael William Duffy, Merlin Law Group, Chicago, IL, Keith Evan Frankl, Frankl Law Firm, P.C., Greenwood Village, for Plaintiff.
Gregory Steve Hearing, II, John M. Palmeri, Gordon & Rees LLP, Denver, CO, for Defendant.
ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT, DENYING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT, AND ORDERING PLAINTIFF TO SHOW CAUSE WHY SUMMARY JUDGMENT SHOULD NOT ENTER ON ADDITIONAL THEORIES
This is an insurance coverage dispute arising out of hail damage suffered by a condominium complex in Arvada, Colorado, on May 8, 2017. Plaintiff Residences at Olde Town Square Association ("Plaintiff") is the homeowners' association that manages the complex. Defendant Travelers Casualty Insurance Company of America ("Defendant") was Plaintiff's property and casualty insurer at the relevant time. Plaintiff's complaint pleads two causes of action: (1) breach of contract and (2) unreasonable delay or denial of insurance benefits in violation of Colorado Revised Statutes §§ 10-4-1115 and -1116. (ECF No. 1 at 12–15.)
Currently before the Court is Defendant's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (ECF No. 66) and Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment (ECF No. 67).
Although not evident from the caption, Plaintiff's motion, like Defendant's, seeks only partial summary judgment. Defendant asks that the Court enter summary judgment against Plaintiff's unreasonable delay/denial claim. (ECF No. 66 at 1–2.) Plaintiff's motion asks for summary judgment that one specific action by Defendant (among many other alleged wrongs) was both a breach of contract and an unreasonable denial of insurance benefits. (ECF No. 67 at 1–2.)
For the reasons explained below, Defendant's motion is granted in full and Plaintiff's motion is denied in full. That leaves only the breach of contract claim for trial. But it appears to the Court that some of Plaintiff's contract theories would have failed as a matter of law if Defendant had moved against them. Per Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f), the Court will order Plaintiff to address why summary judgment should not enter on certain contract theories raised in Plaintiff's motion but not moved against in Defendant's motion.
This disposition also moots the parties' pending Rule 702 motions attacking each other's claims practices experts (ECF Nos. 95 & 96) because those experts are relevant only to the unreasonable delay/denial claims.
Summary judgment is warranted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56 "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a) ; see also Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 248–50, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). A fact is "material" if, under the relevant substantive law, it is essential to proper disposition of the claim. Wright v. Abbott Labs., Inc. , 259 F.3d 1226, 1231–32 (10th Cir. 2001). An issue is "genuine" if the evidence is such that it might lead a reasonable trier of fact to return a verdict for the nonmoving party. Allen v. Muskogee , 119 F.3d 837, 839 (10th Cir. 1997).
In analyzing a motion for summary judgment, a court must view the evidence and all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Adler v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , 144 F.3d 664, 670 (10th Cir. 1998) (citing Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp. , 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) ). In addition, the Court must resolve factual ambiguities against the moving party, thus favoring the right to a trial. See Houston v. Nat'l Gen. Ins. Co. , 817 F.2d 83, 85 (10th Cir. 1987).
The following facts are undisputed unless attributed to a party or otherwise noted.1
In 2015, Plaintiff went to Buckner and Company of Colorado, LLC ("Buckner"), to obtain a new property and casualty policy for the condominium complex. (ECF No. 67 at 5, ¶ 9; ECF No. 67-6 at 4; ECF No. 69 at 8, ¶ 2.)2 The Buckner employee who assisted Plaintiff was Dustin Thome. (Id. )
Mr. Thome applied to Defendant on Plaintiff's behalf for an insurance limit of $7 million, which he judged to be the appropriate insurable value according to various inputs he entered into a web-based calculation tool licensed by Defendant and made available to agencies such as Buckner. (ECF No. 67 at 5, ¶¶ 9–12; ECF No. 69 at 4, ¶ 11; id. at 8, ¶ 2.) The parties dispute just how much Mr. Thome was responsible for entering data into Defendant's tool. (ECF No. 84 at 11, row 2, col. 2.) Regardless, Defendant's underwriting system "automatically evaluated the requested $7 million limit against the information input by [Mr. Thome] concerning the property including the total square footage and type of construction." (Id. ¶ 3.)
The requested limit was a "blanket limit," meaning, in this context, that it covered all buildings under a single insurance limit. (Id . ¶¶ 4–5; ECF No. 66-1 at 4.) Defendant's underwriting guidelines require that "a blanket limit must be within 80 to 150 percent of the property's estimated value as determined by the information input by the agent." (ECF No. 69 at 8, ¶ 4.) "Based upon the construction information input [by Thome] in 2015, the requested blanket limit of $7 million was accepted as being between 80 and 150 [percent] of the property's value and no independent valuation was performed." (Id. ¶ 5.) The policy therefore issued in 2015 with a $7 million blanket limit. (Id. ¶ 7.) This limit automatically increased by 3% in the 2016 renewal policy, and again by 3% in the 2017 renewal policy (id. ), which is the policy at issue in this lawsuit ("Policy") (ECF No. 66 at 2, ¶¶ 1, 3).
The Policy's declarations page reads as follows concerning property and casualty coverage:
(ECF No. 67-1 at 4.) The $7,426,300 blanket limit is the result of adding 3% to the 2015 policy, and then again to the 2016 policy.
As shown, the valuation column specifies "Replacement Cost." For purposes of blanket insurance, the Policy defines Replacement Cost as "[t]he amount you actually spend to repair, rebuild or reconstruct the building, but not for more than the amount it would cost to restore the building on the same premises and to the same height, floor area, style and comparable quality of the original property insured." (ECF No. 83-3 at 3.)
(Id. at 4–5.)
The Policy term was one year, commencing on February 16, 2017. (ECF No. 67-1 at 2.)
On May 8, 2017—not quite three months from the commencement of the Policy term—Plaintiff's properties suffered damage in a hail storm. (ECF No. 66 at 3, ¶ 8.) Plaintiff made a claim on the Policy on July 19, 2017. (Id. at 4, ¶ 12.) On August 8, 2017, Defendant retained Andrew Condie, to assist Defendant in assessing damage to the property and needed repairs. (Id. ¶ 14.) Mr. Condie and certain of Plaintiff's representatives inspected the property on August 10, 2017, and "determined that repairs were necessary to the buildings' roofs, gutters, stucco and windows." (Id. ¶ 15.)
Before Defendant could issue any payment, it needed to calculate the deductible for wind/hail damage. No Statement of Values was on file with Defendant. (Id . at 6, ¶ 24.) The Deductible Endorsement thus specified that the deductible would be calculated against "the value of the property at the time of loss." (ECF No. 66-1 at 5.) Defendant calculated this value through a software tool known as "Commercial Express." (ECF No. 71 at 18, ¶ 19.)
Commercial Express produces a value known as "reconstruction cost." (Id. at 19, ¶ 20.) According to Defendant's expert, Guy Kopperud of CoreLogic (the company that develops Commercial Express), "reconstruction cost" is a term used within CoreLogic to denote the true cost of rebuilding an existing structure after a covered loss, when time frames are compressed, economies of scale are usually unavailable, the contractor must work around existing structures, and so forth. (ECF No. 71-16 at 5, 7; ECF No. 69-9 at 7.) Reconstruction cost is distinct from "replacement cost, new" (also a term internal to CoreLogic), which is "typically used for appraisal and assessor purposes to establish a value on a property where those precautions [e.g. , working around existing structures] aren't necessary." (ECF No. 71-16 at 5; see also id. at 7; ECF No. 69-9 at 6–7.)
An employee of Defendant made a reconstruction cost calculation for Plaintiff's property on August 11, 2017, the day after Mr. Condie's inspection. (ECF No. 67 at 6, ¶ 22.) The calculation came out to $9,569,132. (Id. ) However, the employee's supervisor discovered an error in the inputs. (Id. ¶ 23; ECF No. 68-2 at 4.) After correcting the error, the calculation came out to $10,353,567. (ECF No. 67 at 7, ¶ 24; ECF No. 69 at 6, ¶ 24.) On August 14, 2017, Defendant communicated this property valuation and the resulting 2% deductible to Plaintiff. (ECF No. 66 at 6, ¶¶ 27–28.)3 On August 17, 2017, Defendant issued to Plaintiff a payment of $478,086.09, which was Defendant's estimate of the repair cost minus the deductible. (Id. at 4,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
United States v. Marin-Torres
... ... Indep. Ins. Agents of Am., Inc. , 508 U.S. 439, 446, 113 ... ...
-
Godin & Baity, LLC v. Markel Ins. Co.
...because the Policy does not define "sanctions" does not render the term ambiguous. See Residences at Olde Town Square Ass'n v. Travelers Cas. Ins. Co. of Am., 430 F. Supp. 3d 743, 752 (D. Colo. 2019) (finding that where insurance policy did not define a particular term, "that does not mean ......