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A federal district court in Illinois, relying on a new exclusion in a homeowners' insurance policy, has ruled that a home had not “collapsed” where it “remained upright on its foundation” — even if it was cracked, bulging, sagging, bending, leaning, settled, shrunk, or expanded.
|The Case
In the lawsuit they filed against their homeowners' insurer, Travelers Home and Marine Insurance Company, Patrick and Colleen Walsh asserted that they had hired a contractor to build a second story addition off the rear on their one-and-one-half story brick bungalow on West Catalpa Avenue in Chicago, which originally had been built in the late 1920s.
According to the Walshes, they agreed with the contractor to expand the project to lowering the existing basement floor to be level with the basement floor of the rear addition.
|Contractor's wrongdoing?
The Walshes asserted that, as a result of the contractor's malfeasance, their home's foundation was compromised, failed, and cracked, rendering their home structurally unsound and unsafe, both for use as a dwelling and for the completion of the project.
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