Sentinel Management Co. v. New Hampshire Insurance Co.

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that an asbestos contamination presented the required “injury” to building although not complete loss
• concluding that the release of asbestos fibers caused by “abrasions from normal residential and building maintenance activities” in apartment buildings demonstrated a direct, physical loss to property under an all-risk insurance policy
• rejecting the insurer’s argument that the property must suffer structural damage, concluding physical condition of the property, i.e., hazardous contamination by asbestos, rendered the property useless
• noting evidence of asbestos contamination for each building controlled by same partnership
• finding “[a]lthough asbestos contamination does not result in tangible injury to the physical structure of a building, a building’s function may be seriously impaired or destroyed and the property rendered useless by [its] presence”
• “Direct physical loss also may exist in the absence of structural damage to the insured property.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).