Slater v. Merrimack Mutual Insurance Company

This case involved our representation of Ms. Slater concerning the demolition of her home as a result of her estranged husband barricading himself in the property resulting in a SWAT team virtually destroying her home in order to remove the estranged husband from the property.  Ms. Slater’s insurer denied the claim, maintaining that an exclusion in the insurance policy precluded coverage when a loss is caused by the destruction, confiscation or seizure by order of any government or public authority.  The Superior Court found that the insurer’s reliance upon the referenced exclusion was inappropriate in that the actual proximate cause of the loss sustained was the conduct of the estranged husband, not the efforts by the SWAT team to remove him.  This case also involved the doctrine of the innocent co-insured, which Ms. Slater certainly was.

The client, where she first met with us was living in the basement of the ruined property and was without any resources to rebuild her home.  This case was incredibly gratifying in that Ms. Slater truly was an innocent party to this debacle.  Ironically, a Supreme Judicial Court Decision, Western Alliance Insurance Company v. Gill, 426 Mass. 115 (1997) was significant in the outcome.  I argued the Western Alliance case before the SJC.  I had prevailed on summary judgment at the Superior Court level; the matter was appealed and the SJC reversed the decision of the Superior Court finding that the absolute pollution exclusion did not apply to fumes emitted from a Tandoori oven in the context of a patron who was injured at an Indian restaurant. Although the decision in the Western Alliance case was a disappointment at the time, I have had the opportunity to use this decision effectively when representing policyholders against their insurers on the issue of the reasonable expectations of an insured when they purchase a policy of insurance.