January 8, 2018

As we have found in several other cases, the smallest word or punctuation mark can change the meaning of a legal document. A district court in California decided to award $122,000 to an insured golf course based on the interpretation of the word "and" in their Commercial Property Insurance Policy. The case is Mullins v. N.Y. Marine & Gen. Ins. Co., No. 17-cv-02518-JST, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 210481 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 21, 2017).

 In September of 2015 a fire destroyed parts of a golf course in California. The owner and operator of the golf course, Edward Mullins, made a claim for lost business income for $584,000 under the commercial property policy that was effective over the golf course, issued by New York Marine and General Insurance Company. The policy specified that there was "a $500,000 limit for business income and extra expense claims combined". NY Marine paid out $2,709 in 2016 and 107,708 in 2017, and also paid $266,603 towards extra expenses. Together these costs added up to $377,023 leaving $122,977 as the remaining policy limit applicable to the business income claims.