good morning and may please the court i'm nicholas frankie i represent the apollo norwood redfield apartments limited partnership the issue before the court today is what the missouri supreme court would determine to constitute a total loss under that state's valued policies digests total loss is a legal term of art not a late term and total loss also does not mean how many properties are damaged but rather it means how badly the property is damaged both parties agree that responded insured my client for a total loss in the amount of thirty one million seven hundred seventy three thousand six hundred dollars under the business owners policy that was in force at the time of the fire could have a separate policy free for each bill i'm not aware of any insurance company that would separately value the billings on a common development and well you you you say this is i mean you say the  structured i still if you if you had more policies for the same number of buildings the top premiums would be higher i think that's true as well i felt for i had that coming from your client shows to pay less premiums record no you are there's no evidence of a curve i think the value policy stuff recognized insurance companies have the greater bargaining power though and that's why the statutes exist is to make sure the insurance companies properly value each property before the policy is written not counsel the property and shirt i don't know that i buy the textural argument the property insert here is thirty two buildings right and i am i missing something well it each of the thirty two buildings are insured and required to be valid you have it says property it's a it is a specific article and it refers to dop property and so i don't know how you could do it out why why you and when you go to in the record at ninety nine and look at the definition of the coverage it says a building a singular building is valued at the thirty one million dollar number so i would say that if th ambiguity in the policy that has to be construed against the insurance company so the argument is not so much what the statute than that the argument it's what the specific insurance policy well i don't i don't think that's the case as well i think there is  the argument of the respondent is that we should look at kansas law which uses a completely different standard and does have a case from one nine hundred twelve that says you look at the entire property missouri our has from  six a case called stevens versus norwich union fire insurance in which part of the property into the policy was considered a total loss and part of the property under the policy was considered a partial loss so under your theory than at suppose that the limit has under this policy and which american family decided to group the cover druther them value each building that's corrupt where's the where is the record that the insurance company decided the group as companies fall i'm not saying that the structure i'm not saying that was their decision to group the buildings but missouri valued policies require the parties to agree on a value to the property and this policy said each building is valued for the thirty one million dollars number it didn't set out separate values for the buildings and the parties agreed to that blanket number for each broke there's no other amount in the policy that american family could point to and say that's what building seven was insured for this is the only amount and i think you have to look very closely at the value policies dodgy policies which are to well the when fault was actually the insurance company collecting higher premiums because they value the property in this manner so they got the windfall it actually is the policy has suffered premium  why isn't the better reading of the statute when you or of the policy the property insured is all thirty two and a total loss requires a total loss of thirty two that is not what this judge revives total loss doesn't go to how many properties are unsure of it goes to how badly the property was doesn't that they the question as to what property means though and is that where you prefer back then to the to the way the policy describes property because the way i read property is very different than yours property is used in the generic sense which is you know if i insure this was a policy of insured and it detailed the entire policy is shown in the record and the record of the policy begins in the record on page sixty five and continues for several hundred pages and i believe that the last page of the policy in the record is page one eighty four mr frankie when describing  record and in describing the cartridges i believe misrepresented probably unintentionally but misrepresented exactly what the policy says the policy declarations should not be read one page page ninety nine which is what he points to repeatedly in his brief but should be read in total the policy declarations begin on page eighty nine and they conclude on page ninety nine the page to which he repeatedly cites page eighty nine which is the first page states in bold print at the very beginning section one property coverage provided blanket insurance at the following designated premises only for coverages for which a limit up in sherm's is shown unless coverage is provided my in an endorsement and th en the thirty two premises follow on page ninety nine the page to which mr frankie repeatedly refers excuse me i skipped over  it page ninety nine refers to coverage the building coverage in or rich says that the building coverage is a blanket coverage and it's the insurance companies to pay out a replacement cost so it's not saying that there's only one building that's covered and ink fact if we go to page one hundred eight of the record which is the insuring agreement under section one property coverage as a one covered property it then describes the building plural which are covered judge jackson was confronted with our motion for summary judgment very early on in the case and she took the motion for summary judgment under submission for quite some time in the undisputed facts were just what i represented to you there were thirty two buildings covered the policy of insurance completely set forth in the record one of those buildings was totally destroyed by fire two were damaged twenty nine suffered no damage at all so the questions that were asked of mr frankie regarding what the property insured meant were apt questions because the property insured under the building coverage were those thirty two buildings just as shown on the declaration pages eighty nine through ninety eight the limit is shown on page ninety nine the thirty one point seven seven three million dollars now american family insurance has at no time said that all of those thirty two buildings were not valued for that amount the thirty one point seven seven three million dollars rather american families position all along has been that i partial loss does not equal a total  words in the value policy statute to which mr frankie referred are you get the policy limits quote in case of total loss on the property insured unquote the property insured under the building blanket replacement cost coverage were all thirty two buildings now where does it say that i'm looking at that right now i mean this is i know you've got to represent your client but this isn't the clearest policy either i mean you may ultimately be right about the legal question i just said building blanket replacement cost thirty one million seven hundred seventy three thousand six hundred dollars you're out of that's why i began on page  eighty nine of the record we're under section one it says the coverage provided blanket insurance at the following described premises only for coverage for which a limit of insurance is shown unless coverage is  provided by indorsement in then on page ninety nine which is where you're looking in it what does it show it has the limit thirty one point seven seven three million dollars in then we flip over to page one away which i described earlier also earlier that then has the ensuring agreement that's the agreement between norwood redfield an american family that describes what those coverages are and forty eight so the record on that page we're just we're just referencing the building is really a generic as a generic reference not to each individual building as he suggests it's took it's to distinguish it from let's say personal property which is underneath exactly what is the other various kinds of coverages and it goes for progression it starts with believe and then i don't i haven't looked back to it or but then it goes on to other coverages i believe contents  next item in the under that is business income loss that's a brother coverage and then there are additional coverages which would include the debris removal that was involved in this case as well as other possible coverages so those are just types of coverages and that's why it's singular not plural but when you get to the ensuring agreement on the page that i pointed out i believe it was one zero eight of the record when you get to the ensuring agreement itself there it talks about bil needs plural that's why we know that the in the property insured were all thirty two of those buildings and i see that my time is rapidly running away so let me get to at least one of the cases that's important in it and it's the case to which mr frank you refer and once again it's important because they're the missouri  hundred six was confronted with two different kinds of coverages building that's what they took up first in context that's what they took up second there was a total loss to the building so plaintiffs got the policy limits for that then the second coverages the second part of the case kind of confusing case to read it's written in one thousand zero six but that coverage dealt with the contents and the court held that because there was only a of insurance because plaintiffs did not allow for the appraisal to go forward yes or the stevens for versus norwich union far insurance company in out looking and speaking  specifically about pages six eighty nine and six hundred ninety six hundred eighty nine and six ninety of that opinion which i think are very critical critically important for sions of that three seven one point one six zero requires us to submit it to the department of insurance and the department of insurance approved this policy and i would think that this particular circumstance is not and if you've got an apartment complex with you know twenty unit and one of them gets burnt down than that that's a pretty common occurrence to make a claim out of this type of policy yes and that's why this court in the in the boardwalk apartments case to which we started the state auto versus boardwalk apartment  from the district court of west virginia also involved one structure totally damaged by fire in multiple structures not damaged by fire at all in the core in both of those cases hat one building does not equal a total loss you don't get the full policy limits that's what the court said also in the stevens case so you know i see that my time has run out what our position is clearly said in the briefs i believe thank you thank you american family has always done vastly relied on its policy terms but the valid policy statutes are a part of every policy in the state of missouri and they cannot be circumvented by policy language also the ambiguity is clear when counsel has to come in to explain the policy as wasn't explained at the onset of insurance  get there i mean i understand you want to tack to cases but i'm wondering i asked opposing counsel this is a common policy would you agree with that i really mean what our common structure kind of structure yes and you know it had to be approved et union yes it was real property and personal property but the importance of the case is not all the property it under the policy had to be a total loss the building was a total loss the personal plea was a partial loss that cases think the reasons the state auto case is important to note is that missouri started as a wholly destroyed jurisdiction which is what kansas uses the term wholly destroyed button in hundred ninety four missouri went off the holy destroyed idea and went to the total loss and missouri courts have has since that time determined it takes less and less and less for our property to be a total loss while kansas has held on to the idea that all properties have