Skip to main content

Maritime Law--11th Circuit Again Finds Exclusion Applicable in Marine Insurance Policy

In Miele v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s of London, Case No. 13-14166 (11th Cir. Mar. 17, 2014), the Eleventh Circuit in another unpublished decision has found that exclusion for:

"The cost of repairs or replacing any part of Your Boat by reason of wear and tear, gradual deterioration, osmosis, wet or dry rot, corrosion, weathering, marring, scratching, denting, vermin, pets or marine life, or electrolytic or galvanic action"
is not ambiguous.
In Miele, an insured’s 32-foot vessel sank while docked because water entered through what a surveyor concluded was a “degraded and rotten” air conditioning hose, which cause was not disputed.  Underwriters denied coverage under the insured’s yacht insurance policy based upon the exclusion. In the insured’s suit against the insurers, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted summary judgment to the insurers.
 
On appeal, the insured argued that the exclusion was ambiguous and should be limited to excluding only the cost of replacing the air conditioning hose and not the cost of replacing the entire boat if a part failed and caused a sinking.  The Eleventh Circuit disagreed, concluding that the exclusion was unambiguous and broader than the insured argued.  In the court's view, the exclusion applied to all damages arising from the need to replace a single part due to wear and tear. The appellate court agreed with the district court’s reasoning that a vessel is nothing but a sum of all its parts and that the exclusion bars coverage for any single part or collection of parts where the damages are caused by wear and tear of any part.  In the case at hand, “the need to replace one part due to wear and tear indirectly gave rise to a need to replace all parts.”  Unfortunately for the insured, the fact that the entire vessel was damaged made no difference in the application of the exclusion.

This case is reminiscent of my case of St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. Lago Canyon, Inc., where the district court found no coverage for losses due to sinking at the vessel's mooring where the cause of the flooding was corrosion of a brass hose fitting to the air conditioning hose. The difference in Lago Canyon was that there was a separate allegation that the brass hose fitting was inappropriate for the use. Lago Canyon appealed that decision. On remand by the Eleventh Circuit, the district court found that although the "yellow brass" in the salt water installation may be a "manufacturer's defect", the proximate cause of the loss was corrosion, which was clearly excluded under the policy. 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 114568 (S.D. Fla. 2009). Thus, the result in Miele is the correct one under the circumstances.

If you are interested in receiving a copy of either the Miele decision or the Lago Canyon decision, you may write to me at mov@chaloslaw.com.

Comments

  1. Comprehensive Yacht Assurance BlogMay 23, 2014 at 9:49 AM

    Two very clear examples of the duty of the insured to not only read the entire policy but to understand it as well. Good stuff.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ReThink + ReUse Center "It's How We Roll" Fun Raiser -- Bowling Night -- October 16, 2014

As many of my readers may be aware, I am the Chair of the ReThink + ReUse Center, a non-for-profit educational and environmental Center in Miami educating children into rethinking reuseable materials for learning through play. The ReThink and ReUse Center’s Quality Play is Learning Program provides a series of educational and participatory workshops based on the philosophies of Reggio Emilia and Harvard's Project Zero Visible Thinking. The Children’s Trust is the major funder of this program, but the Center is required to continually fundraise for the balance its annual budget.   The Center is having a fun event you are invited to--the ReThink + Reuse Center’s “It’s How We Roll” bowling event on October 16, 2014 at Splitsville Luxury Lanes from 18:00 to 21:30 hours. My firm, Comcast and Waste Management are major sponsors for this event, but we could use a few more sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring the event, please let me know by reaching me at mov@chalos...
6 comments
Read more

Maritime Law--Florida's Arbitration Code Is Now Revised

Those of us that practice maritime law regularly must always be on the lookout for the contract that may contain an arbitration clause. Thus, any laws related to arbitration are important to those of us practicing in this sector.       The Florida legislature has revised the Florida Arbitration Code ("FAC") and named it the Revised Florida Arbitration Code (the " Revised Act"). Since 1967, the FAC had gone mostly unchanged. The Revised Act addresses concepts that were not addressed in the old law, such as the ability of arbitrators to issue provision remedies, challenges based on notice, consolidation of separate arbitration proceedings, required conflict disclosures by arbitrators, among other major changes. The Revised Act lays out a detailed framework for international arbitration conducted under Florida law and repeals sections of the FAC. The Revised Act spells out what experienced arbitrators knew the case law to be, but codifies it all in one pl...
4 comments
Read more

Maritime Law--Lozman Case Revisited in Miami?

In Hoefling v. City of Miami , Case no.: 14-12482 (11th Cir. Jan. 25, 2016), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit revived almost all of Hoefling's claims. You ask, "Who is Hoefling?" Hoefling  lived on his sailboat Metis O moored off Dinner Key for nearly a decade—until the day he came home and it was gone. About three months earlier, an officer from the Miami Police Department's Marine Patrol Detail tagged Hoefling's vessel for lacking a sanitary device and a working anchor light. He had a deal to use the facilities at the nearby marina but quickly went out and reportedly bought what he needed to comply. Three months later while he was on a business trip, the City of Miami seized and destroyed his boat and all his belongings. As a result, he was homeless. He sued under § 1983, maritime law, and state law. He stated a claim under the Fourth Amendment for seizure and destruction without notice or cause and a “taking.”    At the ...
5 comments
Read more