She turned off the water supply to the house and later determined that the water had come from a supply line running from the kitchen sink to the refrigerator ice maker.

According to the water department, the leak began at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 11, 2018, and ended at 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 4, 2018, with a total of approximately 5,000 gallons of water running continuously at a rate of nine to 10 gallons per hour for that 25 day period.

Ms. Landrum reported the damage to her homeowner's insurer, Allstate Insurance Company.

The insurer's adjuster determined from examining mold growth that water had been coming out of the supply line for enough time to deny her claim, based on an exclusion for "[s]eepage, meaning continuous or repeated seepage or leakage over a period of weeks, months, or years, of water, steam or fuel" from "a plumbing, heating, air conditioning or automatic fire protection system or from within a domestic appliance."

Ms. Landrum sued, and Allstate moved for summary judgment.

The District Court's Decision

The district court granted the motion.

In its decision, the district court first found that the policy's exclusion for "seepage, meaning continuous or repeated seepage or leakage," was not ambiguous. It specifically rejected Ms. Landrum's argument that the "circular definition" rendered "seepage" per se ambiguous.

The district court then ruled that the definition of seepage in this case was "not open to various interpretations" because the policy "clearly" limited it "to its plain meaning" and the ordinary meaning afforded to "seepage" was "percolation or oozing of water or fluid," "a process in which a liquid flows slowly out of a hole or through something," or the process of flowing or passing "slowly through fine pores or small openings."

According to the district court, the policy's exclusion of both seepage, which in some definitions included a speed component, and leakage, which did not include a speed component, indicated the intention "to exclude any escape of water," including that which was slow-moving and that which was not.

Thus, the district court ruled, it could not reasonably be disputed that the loss to Ms. Landrum's property arose from seepage as defined in the policy and as that definition was informed through ordinary meaning.

Finally, the district court rejected Ms. Landrum's argument that Allstate was required to bifurcate the damages to the property and provide coverage for the portion of the damages that arose from the first 13 days of the 25-day period of seepage because a 13-day leak would, as a matter of law, occur over a period of days and not weeks. The district court found no evidence that the damages were caused by less than 25 days of leakage. Moreover, it said, the damages estimate Ms. Landrum relied on did not differentiate between damages that resulted from the first 13 days of the leak and those that resulted from the other 12 days of the leak, and there was nothing in the record to suggest that such a differentiation had been, or even could be, made.

The case is Landrum v. Allstate Ins. Co., No. 5:18-cv-00458-TES (M.D. Ga. Oct. 2019). Attorneys involved include: For KIMBERLY LANDRUM, formerly known as KIMBERLY SHEPARD, Plaintiff: WILLIAM MAXWELL COMPTON, LEAD ATTORNEY, Savannah, GA. For ALLSTATE INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant: WILLIAM E ZSCHUNKE, Melissa C. Patton, LEAD ATTORNEYS, ONE SECURITIES CENTRE, SUITE 1210, ATLANTA, GA.