California Court of Appeal

In plaintiff's suit for declaratory relief, equitable contribution, and partial equitable indemnity, seeking a proportionate or equitable share of sums it spent to defend an insured in a construction defect action, trial court's grant of defendant's motion for summary judgment is reversed where: 1) defendant did not meet its burden of showing there was no potential for coverage under the terms of its policy, or no duty to defend the insured in the underlying action, as a matter of law; and 2) defendant failed to show that the insured had no reasonable expectation that at the time the policy was issued, a $25,000 SIR would apply only once to the underlying action as a whole, rather than to each eight homes constructed after November 30, 2002, as a matter of law, and all of the papers submitted on the motion leave this possibility open.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/15/2010
• Published 07/07/2010

Judges

• KING

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Karen-Denise Lee, A. Carl Yaeckel