Insurance recovery partner Tyler Gerking and I have co-authored an article examining two recent cases from separate California state courts that we feel correctly interpret the phrase “that particular part” as it applies to certain CGL policy exclusions, and apply it in its intended narrow sense. The rulings in Pulte Home Corp. v. American Safety Indemn. Co. and Global Modular, Inc. v. Kadena Pacific, Inc. are good news for contractors and are in contrast to some recent decisions by federal courts.
It is encouraging to see California appellate courts studying the meaning of the actual policy language, and not simply accepting insurers’ broad brush straw-man arguments about what CGL policies are, or are not, intended to cover. By comparing the actual language of exclusions against each other and comprehending what each one was intended to exclude, the Pulte Home and Global Modular courts realized that each exclusion had a specific intent, and the terms of one exclusion could not be imparted to another exclusion, nor could they all be “mushed together” to make one large, catch-all type exclusion.