Insurers offering commercial general liability policies have a new cautionary tale after the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled that insurers may be required to compensate their insureds for unusable products.
Facts
The dispute involved a plastic bag manufacturer, Bulldog Bag
Ltd, which provided more than 1 million printed plastic bags to
SureGro, a customer that used Bulldog's bags for its soil and
manure business. SureGro noticed that after some of the bags were
filled with SureGro products, the print faded and ran off, making
the labelling on the bags illegible. As a result, the bags were
deemed unfit for use. Bulldog provided SureGro with replacements
and credited it for the unused defective bags. SureGro proceeded to
transfer the contents of the defective bags to the new bags, which
cost it over C$780,000. SureGro was able to claim this amount from
Bulldog; however, Bulldog was denied insurance coverage for its
claim from AXA, its insurer. Bulldog claimed only for the content
transfer costs plus the value of soil and manure contained in the
defective bags that were lost or destroyed in the process. Bulldog
did not claim for the cost of replacing the defective bags.
Bulldog's commercial general liability policy outlined coverage
for property damage due to an "accident" or
"occurrence". The policy defined 'property
damage' as "physical injury to or physical destruction of
tangible property, including loss of use thereof, or loss of use of
tangible property that has not been physically injured or
destroyed". AXA argued that the only physical injury or damage
to tangible property was to the bags themselves, which were
Bulldog's own property and work product. Accordingly, the other
costs incurred were attributable to pure economic loss, which AXA
did not cover.
Decisions
At trial level, the court ruled that Bulldog's policy
covered only the value of the lost or destroyed soil and manure
contained in the defective bags. This amounted to approximately
C$12,000 and left Bulldog responsible for a loss of over
C$770,000.
Between the time of Bulldog's trial and the court of
appeal's decision, the Supreme Court of Canada decided
Progressive Homes Ltd v Lombard General Insurance Co. In that case
the insured, a general contractor, built a housing development that
was later found to contain defects that allowed rainwater to enter
and damage parts of the building. Progressive was denied
indemnification under the commercial general liability policy that
it held with its insurer.
The lower courts in Progressive determined that Progressive's
commercial general liability policy covered "property
damage" caused by an "occurrence", but was
restricted to claims for damage to property outside of the
insured's work product.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Progressive's claim for
physical damage for the construction defects to its housing
developments was covered by its commercial general liability
policy. The Supreme Court determined that the terms 'property
damage' and 'occurrence' in the policy did not exclude
property that the insured contracted and supplied. Accordingly, the
Supreme Court found that Progressive's insurers had a duty to
defend it.
After the Supreme Court decision in Progressive, the issue in the
appeal of Bulldog shifted from an interpretation of the commercial
general liability policy's insuring provision to the question
of whether any of the exclusions in the commercial general
liability policy applied.
AXA conceded that Bulldog's defective bags were an
'occurrence' resulting in 'property damage', but
argued that the policy's work product exclusion negated
coverage for the cost of the contents transfer from the defective
bags to new ones. AXA attempted to argue that the costs relating to
the contents transfer of the bags were related to the loss of use
of the bags, which involved repairing and replacing Bulldog's
defective work product. Consequently, AXA reasoned that there was
no claim for damage.
The court of appeal disagreed and held that the work product
exclusion did not apply. The court distinguished between a claim
for loss of use and a loss flowing from a loss of use (eg, the
transfer and recovery costs of the manure and soil resulting from
the loss of use of the bags). Because the claim was not for
"loss of use" of Bulldog's bags, but rather for the
cost of salvaging and transferring the manure and soil, those costs
were determined not to be excluded from coverage under the policy.
As the work product exclusion did not specify that coverage would
be excluded for "claims that flow from" the defective
product, the work product exclusion was found not to apply.
Comment
Insurers and insureds can take a number of lessons from this
case. Specifically, insurers, insureds and their brokers are
advised to:
- assess whether work product exclusions should include losses incurred as a result of defects in the insured's own work, goods or products, and set premiums accordingly;
- review the business practices of the insured to verify the coverages and exclusions that they intend to apply;
- discuss mitigation techniques in the cases of an occurrence under the policy to ensure that post-occurrence acts by the insured do not invalidate coverage; and meet with counsel if in doubt about their rights or obligations.
Originally published on International Law Office
The foregoing provides only an overview. Readers are cautioned against making any decisions based on this material alone. Rather, a qualified lawyer should be consulted.
© Copyright 2011 McMillan LLP