Aboulafia Law Firm successfully defended an appeal on behalf of homeowners in the Appellate Division, First Department, in a dispute over water damage from a burst pipe. The insurer had denied the claim based on the homeowners policy’s flood exclusion. At trial, the Supreme Court, New York County, initially directed a verdict for the insurer and dismissed the case. On reconsideration, however, the trial court vacated that judgment, found that the flood exclusion did not apply to water from a burst pipe, and ordered a new trial. The insurer appealed.
The First Department unanimously affirmed. The Court held that the original directed verdict was based on the trial court’s “misapprehension of the state of the law concerning an exclusion for flood damage in a homeowners’ policy,” and not, as the insurer argued, on any failure of proof by the homeowners. The Court further held that the trial court did not err in finding “that the exclusion for flood coverage did not apply where a pipe had burst.” The decision confirms that, under New York law, a flood exclusion is aimed at natural flooding and generally does not apply to water released from a burst pipe or other man-made source.
Read the Decision below:
Rovelli v. Allstate Ins. Co., 38 A.D.3d 241, 831 N.Y.S.2d 150 (1st Dept. 2007).