To reach the trees that Mr. Browning wanted for his sawmill business, a worker for Mr. Browning believed that he needed to cut down a standing oak tree. He used a chainsaw to “notch” the tree at the base of the trunk, but the chainsaw became stuck. Mr. Browning and the worker left the site, and the tree subsequently fell on Mr. Wilson.

Thereafter, Mr. Wilson sued Browning Timber and Mr. Browning, alleging that they had “negligently/wantonly pruned [the tree] and left it in a condition which was dangerous” to Mr. Wilson and caused his injuries.

Northfield Insurance Company, which had issued a commercial general liability insurance policy to Browning Timber, asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama to declare that it had no duty to defend Browning Timber or Mr. Browning in Mr. Wilson's action.

Northfield moved for summary judgment. Mr. Wilson argued that coverage existed under the Northfield insurance policy because his injuries had been caused by tree pruning or trimming.

Northfield argued that no coverage existed under the policy because Mr. Wilson's injuries had been caused by a failed attempt to cut down a tree, not by tree pruning or trimming, and cutting down trees was not covered by the insurance policy it had issued to Browning Timber.

The Northfield Insurance Policy

The Northfield insurance policy provided that it applied to:

“bodily injury” and “property damage” caused by only those operations which are classified and shown on the Commercial General Liability Coverage Declarations, its endorsements, and supplements. 

The declarations identified the following classifications for coverage under the policy:

Tree Pruning, Dusting, Spraying, Repairing, Trimming or Fumigating. 

The district court granted the insurer's motion, holding that Northfield had no duty to defend or indemnify Browning Timber or Mr. Browning because the insuring agreement was “not satisfied.”

In its decision, the district court pointed out that the Northfield insurance policy only covered “[t]ree [p]running [and] [t]rimming.”

The district court declared that that “the only reason one would cut a notch in the tree is to fell the tree, not prune or trim it.” Cutting trees down was not covered under the Northfield policy, the district court reasoned.

The district court was not persuaded by Mr. Wilson's argument that it did “not matter whether the felling of the tree injured [Mr.] Wilson or whether the pruning of the tree injured [Mr.] Wilson” because both of these services were regularly provided by “tree service” companies. The district court reasoned that even if tree felling and tree pruning both fell within services that a tree service company provided, it could not rewrite the “unambiguous policy language” so as “to include or exclude coverage that was not intended.”

Moreover, the district court concluded, even if Mr. Browning had applied for insurance for the tree service portion of his business and told his insurance agent that removal of trees would constitute some portion of his business, the “plain, unambiguous language of the classification operations” for which the policy provided coverage did not include tree removal.

The case is Northfield Ins. Co. v. Browning Timber & Saw Mill, LLC, No.: 4:17-cv-01236-ACA (N.D. Ala. Jan. 8, 2019). Attorneys involved include: For Northfield Insurance Company, Plaintiff: Brenen G Ely, LEAD ATTORNEY, Candace H Newton, ELY & ISENBERG LLC, Birmingham, AL. For Browning Timber & Saw Mill, LLC, also known as Browning Sawmill, LLC, Defendant: F Michael Haney, INZER HANEY MCWHORTER & HANEY LLC, Gadsden, AL. For Brad Wilson, Defendant: David E Miller, Jr, WETTERMARK KEITH, Birmingham, AL; J Flint Liddon, LIDDON LAW FIRM, Birmingham, AL.