afternoon and ma'am please the court my name is aaron katz and i'm here representing hamilton specialty insurance company the petitioner in this case and your maiden return but i'm sorry thank you hamilton respectfully asked this court to reverse the u s district court for the eastern district of michigan decision here for two reasons st the policy of insurance is an ambiguous and must be enforced as written and nd transition investments entry into a confession judgment is a breach of the terms of hamilton's insurance policy your honor sift cases about a rental property that was rendered unsafe by the landlord's failure to the phillips obligation and numerous exceptions to the insurance coverage the in action of the landlord and the tenant both directly and proximately caused this unfortunate event however the insurance policy is clear that such an event is excluded from coverage insuring a rental property hamilton relied on the landlord's representations regarding the safety of this particular property the landlord failed to keep the property in a habitable condition or meet other insurability requirements as it unambiguous and must be enforced as written court should not create ambiguity in an insurance policy where the terms of the contract are clear and precise a police may urge this court to consider the quote unquote unusual facts of this case to allow coverage though no ambiguity exists however hamilton asked this court to strictly construe the terms of the policy as it is uncontested that the tenant mua of the defect in the stove that eventually l tender the complaint to you and say we want coverage here is that comply and and it's arguable that we're liable right i mean it's the standard on a duty to defend is just is it arguably are they arguably negligent essentially i don't know i don't know why that doesn't give rise to a duty to defend them is there some michigan principle that i'm missing here what what what's it just seems like a clear duty to  the principle that i know is heavily relied on by police is that there is an absolute duty to defend but the case law states that it's a do you defend or to deny coverage as they did here that's not inappropriate but of course the insurance company runs the risk of having to go the route that we had to here file the declaratory judgment you know and make a judicial determination here as opposed to just the automatic duty to defend so it's not necessarily improper it just gives rise to this the nd litigation here moment and insured property owner breaches any local habitability ordinance no matter how trivial it just seems that there would have been no limiting principle there i guess if the problem had been remedied before something like this happened so if we had known that twelve people were staying in the house as opposed to eight or if we had known that there was no egress from the nd floor window and those those issues as well as the lack of terms of escape i mean from the nd floor and one smoke detector in the whole house in the basement i mean those are not trivial violations so that's not what we have here is an insurance company trying to get out from liability based on a very small technicality it's for very glaring violations that violate one hundred relations section eight housing and local regulations so these were glaring defects that gave rise to the the policy itself doesn't make any distinctions between meyer violations or major violations but what it does provide is for a lack of coverage for health and safety code violations like i said  laws ordinances and statutes federal state or local section eight programs those kinds of violations and those are not enumerated trivial violations against those cuts those bodies provide for very serious regulations meant to ensure the safety of the tenants especially in the section eight housing where they're being offered government assistance and at the same time protection from landlords and so those are all things that need to be exit contributed to the injury but didn't cause the fire would that would that be enough to deny coverage to arise out of the violation or result from the violation yes and absolutely it did here because if there had been the ability to exit the nd floor from from the window or an alternate means of exit besides the stairs or even regulation of the amount of people in the building or again a smoke detector any of those four things there would have been litigation of these damages people would have been able to escape from the nd floor it was the three individuals unfortunately passed on a nd floor and that is the violation itself is the direct cause there there damages this this is just clay isn't  necessarily look to the cause of the fire to be the cause of the damages here the code violations are the causes of the damages and the fire itself is sort of separate that was not addressed you're correct that the lower court level that would have been addressed in the state court proceedings but that was all decided to be at the entry of the consent judgment which is also a violation of the terms of the policy is that's do we do we  my understanding based on the prelate a geisha an investigation which again unfortunately is not a part of the lower court record is that there was an investigation and that it was not a defect in the manufacture of the stove but in the maintenance of th incorrect here but my understanding is that that conclusion was made by the local fire department and not by an individual hired by either party include i'm sorry what did the fire department conclude there was a report rendered again my apologies it was not part of the lower court record because we didn't have that we didn't believe that that was going to be a major issue in the determination of the policy language but they determined what i had just you counsel an extra minute to to address the assumption of viability klug are you satisfied with the presentation you made so far includes the obligation to investigate and to make a knowledgeable determination on what exact claims are and whether or not they fall within the coverage the important thing for present purposes is the complaint because minimally they have to compare the complaint with the insurance policy in this particular case the complaint  requirements and a step further it's true that there was not a detailed trial there was a consent judgment if the insurer wanted there to be a trial is claiming some special interpretation bear in mind st of all exclusionary clauses are strictly construed against the insurer and likewise ambiguities or questions about the insurance coverage are likewise construed against the insurer there is mention i guess that counsel says that under michigan a national law that only applies to liability that would not otherwise arise in fact subsection to a subsequent says exclusion doesn't apply to liabilities for damages the i say don't worry brother i will take care of that and now i turn to my insurance company and say now i'm liable because of my contract i assume someone else knows why a building that's the sort of situation that that exclusion is meant to personal injury or i think or resulting from the alleged or actual violation there are no alleged violations of any habitability code the allegations are the  boils down to the fact that at this stage of proceedings it was incumbent upon the insurers to provide a defense and one to make the decision not to  st and foremost breach of the contract and also triggers the case law from this court as well as the michigan state courts  settlement and in this particular case in the state court the state why the judge made a specific finding that this was a fair and reasonable settlement and the insurer was given every opportunity invitation in the world to know what was going on it was invited to participate in the settlement discussions it was made known as the settlement discussions and consent judgment were about to be cen any other questions the court may have but i think that sums up our argument address the provision regarding the duty to defend in the policy as far as if there are health and safety code violations and just note that the contract itself is not illusory it's clear that the property must be safe and have it all will and must comply with these statutes in order for it to be insured if it had been in the property had been in compliance then the damages would have been much more limited court i was incorrect when i did mention that on the record and i have since been corrected that they did not inspect the property prior to writing the policy however they relied on the the assertions made by the landlord that this property was safe and was habitable and was in compliance with all the codes including section codes that it needed to be to be insured and the policy has a provision indicating that hamilton specifically relies on those representation issuing the and as far as the assumption of liability again the policy provides very clearly quote that hamilton shall not have any duty to defend any claim proceeding or suit arising out of resulting from or in any manner related to those habitability code violations including but not limited to diminish value of the property physical or emotional injury and those are terms directly out of the policy advising the landlord that is the house is not in compliance that this coverage will not exist even for something like this incident as to the consent judgment our position is clear brief as well told you that the that they were going to settle the case i mean that didn't they inform the company that the that these discussions were going on you were invited to participate i mean you were blindsided by it right that's correct we were not blindsided by it we did appear at the hearing where the judgment was entered we filed written objections objecting to its entry objecting to its terms of checking to the incorrectly calculated value of the policy assume any obligations or encourage any expenses and expect hamilton to pay those without hamilton's consent and so for those reasons and the reason stated in my original argument hamilton respectfully ask this court to reverse the district court's