R & P Realty Co. v. Peerless Indemnity Ins. Co.

Citations

• 193 Conn. App. 374

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, R Co. and U Co., sought to recover damages from the defen- dant insurance company for breach of contract. R Co. had leased certain property to U Co., which operated a business in a building on the property that was damaged by an overload of snow and ice on its roof. At that time, the defendant provided a policy of casualty insurance to the plaintiffs, who filed an insurance claim for the damage to the building. The defendant accepted that the roof had been damaged by an event covered by the policy and agreed that replacing the roof and its support- ing structures was necessary. After the parties had engaged in an adjust- ment process, the defendant remitted a payment to the plaintiffs in the amount of $167,006.03, upon which the parties had settled, and a portion of which was allocated to the cost of demolishing the existing roof. As part of the rebuilding process, a company retained by the plaintiffs found that asbestos containing material was present in at least two small areas of the roofing membrane and that lead based paint was detected on a ceiling located in the building. The cost of demolishing and removing all of the old roofing material in a safe and safety compliant manner was $90,139.26. The defendant refused to pay the additional demolition costs, and this action followed. The trial court rendered judgment for the defendant on the breach of contract count, from which the plaintiffs appealed to this court. They claimed that the trial court erroneously concluded that the defendant did not breach the policy by declining to cover the increased demolition costs resulting from the presence of asbestos and lead in the building. Specifically, the plaintiffs contended that the trial court improperly found that the increased demo- lition costs constituted replacement costs, rather than being a compo- nent of the actual cash value of the plaintiffs' loss, and that the plaintiffs failed to provide reasonable notice to the defendant of their claim se