The issue at hand was the “so-called ‘earth movement’ exclusion contained in most first-party property insurance policies.” State Farm argued for an expanded interpretation of the exclusion. The attorney for Ms. Lee, Brian T. Valery, said, “the insurance industry has repeatedly interpreted this ‘earth movement’ provision, which
typically excludes coverage for damage caused to property by ‘sinking, rising, shifting, expanding, or contracting of earth, all whether combined with water or not,’ to exclude coverage for a wide range of occurrences, including damage caused to a property by human activity rather than by an act of nature.”
The Lee’s own a three-story building in Queens County “that suffered physical damage when an adjacent property owner removed the lateral support of the Lees’ building during construction.” The Lee’s claim was more than $500,000 for the property damage but State Farm denied coverage.
Thankfully for the Lee’s the Appellate Division “found that the earth movement exclusion does not exclude coverage for earth ‘excavated from underneath the [policyholder's] dwelling.’”
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