Rhode Island District Court Grants Summary Judgment in Title Insurance Coverage Appeal

The United States District Court docket for the District of Rhode Island lately granted a title insurance company’s motion for reconsideration, holding that the insured did not endure a reduction when it missing title to two houses on which it could not develop advancements. See IDC Qualities, Inc. v. Chicago Title Ins. Co., 2021 WL 4355259 (D.R.I. 2021). The scenario concerned an insured who attained a $10 million title insurance coverage plan when it purchased three properties that it prepared to develop. As a result of rulings from the Rhode Island Supreme Court docket, the insured shed its title in two of the parcels of land (the “South and West Units”). The insured brought a declare, which the title coverage business denied. The insured then introduced this lawsuit, arguing that it shed title as effectively as its ideal to build advancements, such as residential homes, on those people items of assets. The title insurance provider moved for summary judgment, but the Court denied the movement, locating that there had been troubles of point as to the insured’s damages. In making this conclusion, even so, the Courtroom did not contemplate the Rhode Island Supreme Court’s previously determination that the insured could not construct properties on the units as enhancements.

The title insurer moved for reconsideration, and the Court granted the movement. In performing so, the Courtroom approved its argument that “‘when [the insured] lost title to the South and West Units, [the insured] did not drop an ‘improvement’ appropriate to construct new solitary-family members residences in the airspace more than parts of the prevalent aspects of the Goat Island South Condominium [because] it under no circumstances had this sort of a appropriate. . . . Devoid of the skill to assemble enhancements in the airspace that comprised the units, their economic price is zero.’” The Court docket acknowledged that it had created a obvious mistake of law, that there was no real challenge of product actuality, and that the title insurer was entitled to judgment as a subject of law as to protection of the South and West models.