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IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

CHRISTIAN A. FEGHALI and 

CAROL S. FEGHALI, Husband and 

Wife,

Plaintiffs,

v.

COLLINS WELDING AND 

FABRICATION, INC.,

Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff,

 v.

 

THE PHILADELPHIA 

CONTRIBUTIONSHIP,

Third-Party Defendant,

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) C.A. No. N20C-06-165 CLS

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Date Submitted: July 11, 2022

Date Decided: October 7, 2022

Upon Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment.

GRANTED. Upon Third-Party Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. 

GRANTED.

ORDER

Robert C. McDonald, Esquire, Silverman McDonald & Friedman, Wilmington, 

Delaware, 19805, Attorney for Plaintiffs, Christian and Carol Feghali.

Eric Scott Thompson, Esquire, Franklin & Prokopik, Newark, Delaware 19711, 

Attorney for Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff, Collins Welding and Fabrication, 

Inc. 

Robert J. Cahall, Esquire, McCormick & Priore, P.C., Newark, Delaware, 19713, 

Attorney for Third-Party Defendant, The Philadelphia Contributionship Insurance 

Company. 

SCOTT, J.
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INTRODUCTION

Before the Court is Defendant/Third Party Plaintiff Collins Welding and 

Fabrication, Inc.’s (“Collins”) Motion for Summary Judgment (“Motion”). The 

Court has reviewed Plaintiffs Christian and Carol Feghali (“Mr. and Mrs. Feghali”) 

and Third-Party Defendant Philadelphia Contributionship Insurance Company’s 

(“Insurance Company”) responses, as well as the present Motion. For the reasons 

that follow, the Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment is 

GRANTED.

BACKGROUND

This action arising from a claim by Mr. and Mrs. Feghali as a result of 

Collins’s negligence that caused damage to real and personal property of their polebarn. Mr. and Mrs. Feghali alleged in their complaint that on January 26, 2019, they 

permitted their acquaintance Dave Dalik (“Mr. Dalik”) to use their pole-barn to 

undertake a vehicle repair. Mr. Dalik engaged the services of Collins to perform 

welding repairs on the vehicle and the sparks from the welding process caused the 

pole-barn to ignite. The pole-barn and its contents were destroyed. 

As a result of the damage, Mr. and Mrs. Feghali contacted Insurance 

Company, their own insurance carrier. Insurance Company allegedly made a number 

of payments in connection with the fire and one of those payment’s included a check 

for $318,382.10 (“Check”), which was issued to Mr. and Mrs. Feghali in January 
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2020. The Check has not been cashed. Insurance Company asserted a subrogation 

claim against Collins’s insurance carrier, Cincinnati Insurance Company 

(“Cincinnati”). Cincinnati accepted the claim and agreed to pay Insurance Company 

$511,410.11, the full value of Insurance Company’s estimates of Mr. and Mrs. 

Feghali’s damages as of the time of the agreement. Due to the agreement, a release, 

dated June 4, 2020, was entered as between Insurance Company and Cincinnati, 

discharging Cincinnati from all liability for damages from the fire. 

Collins moves for summary judgment on the grounds Mr. and Mrs. Feghali 

have been made whole and have not produced any evidence to the contrary. Collins 

bolsters his claim with evidence that when Mr. and Mrs. Feghali were asked to 

produce special damages, they submitted the same list provided to Insurance 

Company even though they had been compensated for based on market value by 

Insurance Company. 

In response to this Motion, Mr. and Mrs. Feghali contend while they were 

made whole with regard to the structure damage done to the property, the payment 

for the contents inside the structure remain in conflict. Mr. and Mrs. Feghali argue 

the costs of replacement of the destroyed structures was approximately $511,410.11 

and that amount did not account for the contents lost in the fire. Mr. and Mrs. Feghali 

admit they produced to Collins the same inventory that Insurance Company created 

that they then recreated and that a check from the Insurance Company for the lost 
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inventory was issued to them. However, they assert the draft of the lost inventory 

due to the fire was not negotiated and not all of the lost contents could be identified 

based on the condition the items were in after the fire. Therefore, Mr. and Mrs. 

Feghali argue they have not been made whole because although Insurance Company 

issued them a check, the amount was significantly less than the value of loss causing 

the check to be in contention and still not deposited. 

In response to this Motion, Insurance Company does not argue for or against 

the Motion. Rather, Insurance Company takes this opportunity to explain to this 

Court that there is no direct standing between Insurance Company and Collins 

because an injured third party may not bring a direct cause of action against a 

tortfeasor’s insured and Mr. and Mrs. Feghali never pled any direct cause of action 

against them. Insurance Company additionally argues that if this Motion is granted, 

Insurance Company is necessarily entitled to summary judgment because no liability 

can be passed from Insurance Company to Collins, a third party. 

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Under Superior Court Rule 56, the Court may grant summary judgment if “the 

pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together 

with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact 
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and that the moving party is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law.”1 The 

moving party bears the initial burden of showing that no material issues of fact are 

present.2 Once such a showing is made, the burden shifts to the non-moving party 

to demonstrate that there are material issues of fact in dispute.3 In considering a 

motion for summary judgment, the Court must view the record in a light most 

favorable to the non-moving party.4 The Court will not grant summary judgment if 

it seems desirable to inquire more thoroughly into the facts in order to clarify the 

application of the law.5 

DISCUSSION

The Court finds there is no genuine dispute of material fact at issue here. Mr. 

and Mrs. Feghali claim they have not been made whole because a large measure of 

damaged property was so severe that many of the items within the damaged structure 

could not be identified and claim the items contained in the structure total one 

million dollars. Unfortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Feghali have not presented anything to 

this Court regarding the alleged items that were so damaged that they were 

unidentifiable. Instead, Mr. and Mrs. Feghali presented the same inventory that the 

1 Super. Ct. Civ. R. 56(c); Burkhart v. Davies, 602 A.2d 56, 59 (Del. 1991).

2 Moore v. Sizemore, 405 A.2d 679, 680 (Del. 1979).

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Id. at 681.

4 Burkhart, 602 A.2d at 59.

5 Ebersole v. Lowengrub, 180 A.2d 467, 470 (Del. 1962); Phillip-Postle v. BJ Prods., 

Inc., 2006 WL 1720073, at *1 (Del. Super. Ct. Apr. 26, 2006).
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insurance company gave to them and then they recreated. The main problem with 

this presentation is that those items are all ones that have been accounted for, they 

are not those Mr. and Mrs. Feghali claim are so damaged that they are unidentifiable. 

In addition to those items being accounted for, they were reimbursed, minus 

depreciation, for the inventory. Mr. and Mrs. Feghali have been holding on to the 

Check and maintain the amount for the Check is significantly less than the value of 

loss, so the Check is in contention. Unfortunately, this argument has nothing to do 

with their claim against Collins. Just because Mr. and Mrs. Feghali did not deposit 

their insurance proceeds does not go toward Collins’s liability for their loss. Rather, 

the only point it goes towards is their dissatisfaction with Insurance Company’s 

depreciation of their loss. 

Any damages that Mr. and Mrs. Feghali claim must be reduced by the amount 

Insurance Company agreed to pay them. The payment was subsequently subrogated 

by Insurance Company against Collins insurance carrier, therefore Collins, by and 

through its insurance company has paid for the identifiable losses. Mr. and Mrs. 

Feghali may not recover twice for the same injury from the same tortfeasor.6 Without 

Mr. and Mrs. Feghali presenting any evidence to their unidentifiable losses, there is 

6 Brookfield Asset Mgmt., Inc. v. Rosson, 261 A.3d 1251, 1277 (Del. 2021) (“The 

double recovery rule prohibits a plaintiff from recovering trice for the same injury 

from the same tortfeasor.”)
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no additional injury and thus Collins is entitled to judgment in its favor as a matter 

of law. Thus, Collins Motion for Summary Judgment is GRANTED. 

Additionally, the Court recognizes Collins joined Insurance Company as a 

third-party defendant in this matter. Seeing that there is no direct claim from Mr. and 

Mrs. Feghali against Insurance Company and seeing that Collins is not an intended 

beneficiary of Mr. and Mrs. Feghali’s insurance policy7, Collins does not have third 

party standing to sue Insurance Company. Therefore, Insurance Company Motion 

for Summary Judgment to be entered in its favor and that it be dismissed from this 

action is GRANTED.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant/Third Party Plaintiff’s Motion for 

Summary Judgment is GRANTED, and Third-Party Defendant’s Motion for 

Summary Judgment is GRANTED. This Matter is DISMISSED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

/s/ Calvin L. Scott

Judge Calvin L. Scott, Jr.

7 See Schmelz v Marton, 2019 WL 1977079, at *3 (Del. Super. Ct. May 2, 2019).