An appeals court on Wednesday upheld a ruling requiring a property insurance company to cover damage the owners of a Miami-Dade County home said was caused by blasting at a nearby quarry.
A three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal rejected arguments by Tower Hill Prime Insurance Co. that the 2016 damage to the home of Ivet and Mario Bermudez was excluded from coverage under their policy.
Tower Hill went to the appeals court after a jury last year said the insurer was responsible for paying $62,000 to cover damage including cracks in the home.
The homeowners claimed breach of contract, arguing that the damage was caused by vibrations from blasting at the quarry, while Tower Hill said it was caused by earth movement. Tower Hill pointed to a part of the policy that excluded coverage for earth movement.
“The damage is not covered because the subject policy contains an exclusion for damage caused by earth movement,” Tower Hill argued in a motion for summary judgment filed in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court in 2020. “Even if the damage to Plaintiffs’ property was the result of nearby blasting activities, the damage was caused by earth movement. Accordingly, plaintiffs are not entitled to coverage under the policy.”
However, the Court of Appeal said that “the trial came down to a so-called ‘battle of the experts'” and that an expert for the homeowners was “adamant in his opinion that none of the damage to the insured’s home was caused by soil movement or earth movement, but rather was the result of shock waves from the blasting that caused the house to shake”.
“Based on the competing expert testimony, the jury could have reasonably concluded that it was the shock waves, and not soil or earth movement, that shook the house and caused damage to the insured’s home,” said Wednesday’s 11-page decision, written by Justice Kevin Emas and joined by Justices Ivan Fernandez and Alexander Bokor.
Wednesday’s decision did not provide extensive details of the damage to the home. But Tower Hill’s motion for summary judgment in 2020 noted that the homeowners said they found cracks in the ceiling and floor areas, the driveway and a pool wall.
The appeals court said the trial focused on “the narrow issue of whether the cause of the damage to the insured’s home was excluded or not covered under the policy”. After the jury found for the Bermudezes, Circuit Judge William Thomas denied Tower Hill’s request for a so-called directed verdict in favour of the insurer, according to court documents.
Citing conflicting expert testimony, the appeals court said the circuit judge “properly denied Tower Hill’s motions for directed verdict, new trial and judgment notwithstanding the verdict”.
