Dallas Fort Worth Insurance Lawyer Blog
A Fort Worth Federal Judge dismissed a lawsuit on October 11, 2018, wherein the claimant was suing his insurance company for it’s denial of a hail and windstorm damage claim. The case is out of the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division. The style of the case is, University Baptist Church of Fort Worth v. Lexington Insurance Company.
The facts of the case are extensive and will not be discussed at length here except the claim centered around the cost of labor and material that would be required to do the extra work during the roof repair needed to satisfy law and ordinance requirements.
The case was dismissed after Lexington filed a motion for summary judgment. The parties are in agreement, and the record establishes that Lexington paid Church the policy limit of $250,000 for the code upgrade work, and that Lexington complied with all of its policy obligations. Lexington paid Church a total of $852,149.52 for repair of the church buildings in satisfaction of its insurance policy payment obligations.
Church is using the events that followed an underestimate of the cost of doing the code upgrade work as predicates for extra-contractual claims and thus, attempting to shift these extra costs to Lexington.
Rule 56(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that the court shall grant summary judgment on a claim or defense if there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Once the movant has carried its burden under Rule 56(a), the nonmoving party must identify evidence in the record that creates a genuine dispute as to each of the challenged elements of its case pursuant to Rule 56(c). United States Supreme Court law says if the evidence identified could not lead a rational trier of fact to find in favor of the nonmoving party as to each essential element of the nonmoving party’s case, there is no genuine dispute for trial and summary judgment is appropriate.
A reading of the case discusses the causes of action being asserted by Church and how Church failed to come forth with evidence of the elements to establish a fact issue as to those causes of action.