In a Major Hurricane Ike Claim by Commercial Construction Client, Shipley Snell Defeats Insurance Company’s Efforts to Deny Coverage and Bury the Case in High-Volume Discovery

Shipley Snell represented a prominent commercial construction firm in a dispute with its builder’s risk insurance carrier over coverage for extensive damages caused by Hurricane Ike.

The dispute involved more than $9 million in damage to the interior of a new Houston hospital. After denying coverage for the loss, the insurance carrier filed a declaratory judgment action in federal court, seeking a ruling that there was no coverage. Relying on a unique exclusion that had not yet been interpreted by courts, the insurer filed two motions for summary judgment – both of which Shipley Snell defeated. 

The insurer also subpoenaed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from nearly 50 third parties. Shipley Snell worked with its client to strategically prioritize documents for review. We also used a document production database to identify and organize the critical documents without reviewing every page produced in the case. Our firm’s approach allowed the document-intensive case to be handled both effectively and efficiently.

After Shipley Snell defeated the insurer’s second motion for summary judgment, the case settled for a confidential amount.