Murad Management v Hastings Mutual Insurance Company
Dec 18, 2018OUTCOME: Favorable Settlement
This was a years-long battle over the failure of trusses at a commercial property. The insurer (Hastings) paid a small amount for interior water damage but denied the bulk of the claim, including damag ... e to the trusses and payments necessary to comply with the building code (which required replacement of the entire roof). Both sides initially assumed the loss was caused by weakening of the trusses, primarily because there was no other other obvious explanation. In light of certain policy language, the existence of coverage for the "collapse" was questionable. However, after reviewing the available data (including weather records and Hastings' engineer's report), I hypothesized a different loss mechanism. This was: (1) ice accumulated in a depressed area on the roof during an unusually cold winter, forming a thick slab; (2) when outdoor temperatures increased during a heat wave, previously frozen melt water from other parts of the roof flowed to the depression; and (3) the combined weight of the ice-slab and melt-water overwhelmed the trusses' carrying capacity. This was confirmed by an engineer familiar with the roof, and at his deposition Hasting's engineer acknowledged he could not refute the ice-slab mechanism. Nonetheless, the trial judge incorrectly granted judgment to Hastings on the entire claim, following which Murad appealed. The appeal (spearheaded by appellate counsel extraordinaire Don Fulkerson) was largely successful. The Court of Appeals reversed the trial judge with respect to the "ice-slab" theory, and the case was "remanded" (i.e. sent back) to the trial court. The Court of Appeals Opinion can be found at: http://publicdocs.courts.mi.gov/opinions/final/coa/20181218_c339206_40_339206.opn.pdf Following remand, the matter proceeded to trial, but on the first day - before a jury was empaneled - it was adjourned for two weeks by the judge. During that brief period the parties conducted a settlement meeting, which was successful. The meeting was unusual in one respect, which was that face-to-face conversations between the client (an accomplished contractor/negotiator) and Hasting's representative were instrumental in bringing about a very favorable settlement.
