Court Opinion

ID: 9514223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:45:48.369468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:14.056679
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
[¶ 43] I respectfully dissent. The majority does an admirable job of painting the national scene on the issue of whether or not the commercial general liability policy definition of an “occurrence” includes coverage for the subcontractor’s faulty workmanship. However, to reach the majority’s result it is necessary to reverse our prior case law. As the majority notes, there is a mixture of judicial opinions on this subject. I do not agree that this Court must alter its precedent to match the majority of other jurisdictions or, for that matter, the majority of the pundits who have written on this matter in various treatises, law reviews and industry journals.
[¶ 44] On the other hand, it is my experience that the substantial number of judicial opinions construing insurance policies generally, are due in large part to a court’s construction of an insurance contract which is displeasing to the construction industry or the insurance industry which then modifies its model contract to counteract the judicial opinion which leads to yet another judicial opinion as to the meaning and intent of the modification.
[¶ 45] That is apparently what happened in Sheehan Const. v. Continental Cas. Co., 935 N.E.2d 160 (Ind.2010), cited and relied upon by the majority opinion. Like the majority opinion in this case, the majority in Sheehan found it necessary to reverse prior precedent to reach its desired result. However, the decision to do so was not unanimous and in one of the two dissents Chief Justice Shepard wrote:
My colleague’s majority opinion is a genuine tour de force on the development of widely-used forms of commercial general liability policies and the interpretations given them by state and federal courts. Still, I conclude that it leads Indiana to the wrong result.
To make a long story short, I think these policies are neither designed nor priced as coverage for whatever demands the insured may face in the nature of ordinary consumer claims about breach of warranty. Inquiry during oral argument suggested that there may not even exist in the marketplace an insurance product that “covers me when I don’t do a very good job,” if you will.
As the majority recognizes, there is in the country a divide in the case law on *743the point we decide today. I would put us on the other side of this divide.
Id. at 172. Like Chief Justice Shepard’s dissent in Sheehan, I believe the majority leads North Dakota to the wrong result.
[¶ 46] We found our path through the thicket in ACUITY v. Burd & Smith Const., Inc., 2006 ND 187, 721 N.W.2d 33. We concluded that property damage caused by faulty workmanship is a covered occurrence to the extent it causes damage to property other than the work product. I would adhere to that opinion.
[¶ 47] GERALD W. VANDE WALLE, C.J.