West Virginia's highest court, the Supreme Court of Appeals, has ruled that the term "collapse" as used (but not defined) in a homeowner's insurance policy was ambiguous, meant something less than "complete falling in" of a kitchen floor, and included "substantial impairment of the structural integrity" of the floor. The court also held that whether an insured should have known that decay was causing her kitchen floor to sink was a genuine issue of material fact that had to be decided by a jury.

The Case

Freda Marie Bradley filed a claim under her homeowner's insurance policy for damage to her kitchen and bathroom floor. An engineer retained by the insurance company, Farmers & Mechanics Mutual Insurance Company of West Virginia, inspected Ms. Bradley's home and attributed the damage to Ms. Bradley's kitchen floor to long term rotting and decay resulting from inadequate perimeter drainage and lack of a vapor barrier. The report assigned damage to the bathroom floor to water leaking from the toilet drain associated with a faulty wax seal. Farmers then denied Ms. Bradley's claim, citing a policy exclusion for water damage below the surface of the ground, fungi, wet or dry rot, or bacteria.