Christopher Reil

The parties appeared to settle the terms of an order following earlier motions regarding an insurance coverage dispute for water damage.

The court agreed with the defendant brokers to add wording dismissing the action against them concerning an inapplicable 'under construction' exclusion.

The court also stayed the disclosure of certain documents pending the insurer's motion for leave to appeal.

Following a costs endorsement, the plaintiffs requested a reconsideration, arguing the court omitted to deal with elements of their discovery requests.

The court declined to reconsider, noting that the costs of the plaintiffs' motions for further discovery were already assessed and regrouped under the production issues in the earlier decision.

The applicants sought a declaration that their insurer had a duty to defend them in a defamation action arising from a video posted online.

They argued that, as employees of the named insured organization, the claim potentially fell within the commercial liability policy covering personal injury and advertising injury.

The court held that the duty to defend must be determined primarily from the Statement of Claim and that extrinsic evidence may only be considered in limited circumstances to clarify the substance of the pleadings.

The pleadings alleged only that the applicants posted a defamatory video and contained no facts suggesting the conduct occurred in the course of employment with the insured organization.

As there was no “mere possibility” that the claim fell within policy coverage, the insurer had no duty to defend.

The plaintiffs moved to set aside a registrar’s dismissal order after the action was dismissed for failure to meet a timetable deadline under Rule 48.14 of the Rules of Civil Procedure.

The court found the missed deadline resulted from an inadvertent diarizing error and that the motion was brought promptly with no prejudice to the defendant, warranting revival of the action.

A related motion sought production of an accident reconstruction report prepared for the plaintiff’s insurer.

The court held the report was not protected by litigation privilege and that Rule 31.06(3) imposed a high threshold for withholding expert opinions.

The plaintiffs were ordered to produce the report, while the defendants were permitted to pursue underlying source materials from the expert or insurer if relevant.