St. Paul claimed that the district court's application of the restoration period rewrote the policy. The appeals court agreed, stating that the restoration period clause is consistently construed by courts "as entitling the insured to continue to recover its lost profits until it can build a reasonably equivalent store in a reasonably equivalent location." The court, however, found no rulings stating that the insured must resume "functionally equivalent operations" before the coverage is terminated.

 Thus, the court modified the district court's decision by removing "functionally equivalent" as defining the type of operations that would terminate the restoration period.

 In reference to the restoration period being tied to the rebuilding of the WTC complex, the court noted that Reade's policy covered all of its stores and made no reference to any specific property, except the company's headquarters. It also pointed out that "the physical premises of the WTC building in which Duane Reade's store was located was not the subject of the St. Paul policy…nothing in the BI clause supports Duane Reade's claim that it provides site-specific coverage for its WTC store."

 The court further modified the district court's interpretation of the restoration period to eliminate reference to "the location where the WTC once stood."