An insurance company seeks a declaratory judgment that it should not be obligated to cover litigation against an engineering company because the company did not inform its insurer of a fatal wall collapse until more than a year after the wrongful death suit was filed.
State Auto Property and Casualty Insurance Company filed the complaint Nov. 9 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois against Quadrant Design Inc. and Susan Pointer, as special administrator of the estate of Ronald Pointer.
According to the complaint, Ronald Pointer was performing demolition work at Menard Correctional Center on Aug. 2, 2018, when a wall collapsed on him. Ronald Pointer suffered severe and permanent injuries, which allegedly caused or contributed to his death.
As a result, Susan Pointer filed a lawsuit against Quadrant and others on Sept. 17, 2019 in the Randolph County Circuit Court. Quadrant had been contracted by the Illinois Capital Development Board to provide architectural and engineering services for the demolition project.
Susan Pointer claims Quadrant failed to exercise the requisite degree of care that directly caused or contributed to Ronald Pointer’s death. She also claims Quadrant failed to prepare a site safety plan, failed to supervise the process of the work, proceeded to demolish the building without first performing an engineering survey of the structure to determine the possibility of an unplanned collapse, failed to shore up the wall that collapsed, and hired unqualified subcontractors.
According to Quadrant’s insurance policy, State Auto Property and Casualty Insurance Company agrees to provide Quadrant with litigation defense, but not in this case.
The insurer claims it was not informed of the incident right away. Instead, it claims it learned of the incident on Oct. 21, 2020.
“State Auto contends that Quadrant is not entitled to any coverage under the State Auto CGL policy because it breached the policy’s notice of occurrence condition as first notice more than 26 months later is not prompt, not reasonable under the circumstances, and may have prejudiced State Auto,” the suit states.
The insurer also claims Quadrant is not entitled to litigation coverage “because the policy excludes coverage for ‘bodily injury’ arising out of professional services and Quadrant was at the demolition project as the architectural and engineering firm and as alleged by the underlying plaintiff was allegedly negligent in one or more ways,” the suit states.
State Auto Property and Casualty Insurance Company seeks an order finding that it has no duty or obligation to provide a defense to Quadrant Design for Pointer’s lawsuit, plus reimbursement for amounts already expended in the underlying lawsuit and court costs.
The insurer is represented by Robert Chemers of Pretzel & Stouffer in Chicago.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois case number 3:20-cv-1217