Court Opinion

ID: 9765679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:13:34.832157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:13.274452
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Reargument
Per Curiam.
Before certification of the mandate in this appeal the defendant filed a motion for reargument. It contends that the Court overlooked the terms of the insuring agreement providing that liability was not to be “in any event for more than the interest of the insured.” This contention is based on the position which the defendant has persistently maintained that “it is obvious that the plaintiff had no interest whatsoever in the insured structure at the time of the loss.”
The inference, which the defendant regards as obvious, is one of fact rather than a conclusion of law. The result reached by the trial court was required by two essential facts which dominate the controversy because the defendant offered nothing by way of proof to oppose them. The structure “belonged” to the plaintiff at the time of the fire. Although it had been partially dismantled, the undisputed evidence was, and the trial court found, that the dwelling had an actual cash value of $6,000.
By the terms of the policy the plaintiff’s loss was to be measured by cash value rather than the particular worth of the property to the owner. This is so whether the owner entertained an exaggerated or minimal estimate of the property’s utility to him for his own particular uses.
The defendant complains because the trial court failed to act on its motion to amend the answer to include a denial of the plaintiff’s ownership of the insured property. See Shea v. Pilette, 108 Vt. 446, 454, 189 Atl. 154. In this instance the matter was discussed at the close of the hearing. It appears from the remarks of the presiding judge that the court in no way foreclosed the defendant from advancing any consideration to oppose the plaintiff’s evidence of ownership of the insured property. This liberty was granted despite the pre-trial agreement that the case would be tried solely on the question of the value of the insured property at the time of the fire.
*227Although the door was open, the defendant offered no proof to show transfer of title or ownership of the insured property by the plaintiff. Declining the opportunity to offer evidence on the point, the defendant clung to the position it has maintained throughout the course of the entire proceedings by stating to the trial court: “We say that under the cases where the building is in actual process of demolition it obviously is a matter of law it doesn’t have any value”, (sic)
We rejected this proposition by holding that the plaintiff’s ownership of the insured property, coupled with uncontradicted evidence of its actual cash value, was sufficient to require the defendant to indemnify the plaintiff to the extent of the established value within the policy limits. The substance of the present motion is an effort to argue the question further. But the motion fails to demonstrate any point of law or fact which was misapprehended or overlooked, capable of affecting the result reached in the first instance as required by Rule 22.

Request for permission to reargue is denied. Let the original entry go down.