ALEXANDER WILLIAMS, JR., District Judge.
Plaintiffs Izatullo Khoshmukhamedov and Zoulfia Issaeva filed this case against State Farm Fire and Casualty Company (State Farm) on March 15th, 2012, based on State Farm's refusal to pay Plaintiffs under a homeowner's insurance policy for losses sustained when water pipes burst and Plaintiffs' home was flooded. Pending
The following facts are drawn from the parties' briefs and attached exhibits and are undisputed, unless otherwise noted. In 2005, Plaintiffs purchased a home located at 12909 Brushwood Terrace in Potomac, Maryland. Plaintiffs eventually moved into the home in January or February of 2006. Doc. No. 27-3, Khoshmukhamedov Dep. at 59:12-14, 65:8-12. Plaintiffs moved their personal property to the Potomac house from their previous home in Rockville, Maryland. Id. at 65:8-12. They insured the Potomac house with State Farm. Doc. No. 27-2, State Farm Policy.
Plaintiff Khoshmukhamedov manages a business that supplies raw materials for the aluminum industry. His company primarily provides materials to an aluminum factory in Tajikistan. Doc. No. 27-3, at 37:1-11. Khoshmukhamedov's business requires that he frequently travel; the company is headquartered in Switzerland and has employees in Switzerland and Russia. Doc. No. 27-3, at 38:1-39:19. Plaintiffs are Russian citizens, and Khoshmukhamedov's visa prevents him from staying in the United States for more than 180 consecutive days. Doc. No. 27-3, at 54:16-19.
In 2008, Plaintiffs resided at the Potomac house in the first quarter of the year, and then again for a period beginning in September or October and concluding at the end of October. Doc. No. 27-3, at 109:7-110:21. When Plaintiffs left at the end of October, they intended to return to Maryland in February 2009, when Khoshmukhamedov planned to attend a conference in the United States. Doc. No. 27-3, at 111:2-8. Additionally, Plaintiffs intended to bring their grandson to live at the Potomac home and attend a local school. Doc. No. 27-3, at 165:21-166:2. Plaintiffs planned for their son and grandson to eventually live in a second home on the same property, or alternatively, on a nearby property. Doc. No. 27-4, Issaeva Dep. at 24:21-26:11. Because they planned to return, Plaintiffs left many of their personal effects at the Potomac House; the house was furnished, and a car was left in the garage. Doc. No. 27-9, Immerman Dep. at 78:1-12; 171:14-18.
When Plaintiffs left in October 2008, they arranged for Mikhail Immerman, their friend and translator, and Khushi Kalotra,
Upon leaving in October 2008, Plaintiffs had their cable television and telephone services shut off. Doc. No. 27-3, at 125:16-126:17. Khoshmukhamedov also instructed Immerman to have the electricity shut off. Id. at 120:7-22. Khoshmukhamedov believed that upon turning the electricity off, the house would not have heat. Doc. No. 32-2 Ex. 1 at 116:1-3. Immerman contacted Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) to disconnect power to the residence, and he received a confirmation number for the request. Doc. No. 27-8, at 110:4-10. Immerman passed the confirmation number along to Khoshmukhamedov. Doc. No. 27-3, at 120:11-18. The pump that supplied water to the Potomac house ran on electricity, leading Khoshmukhamedov to believe that water would not flow through the piping in the house in the absence of electricity. Id. at 111:9-112:3.
Despite these efforts, the water pump continued to receive electricity throughout the winter. Doc. No. 27-11, State Farm Denial of Coverage Letter, at 2. At some point prior to February 6th, 2009, water pipes in the house froze and burst. See id. at 1. The electric water pump continued to pump water into the house, causing significant damage to both the home and Plaintiffs' personal effects. Doc. No. 27-8, at 70:1-84:1. Kalotra discovered the damage on February 6th, and upon entering, shut off the electricity and the water. Doc. No. 27-10, at 70:4-21. Kalotra then hired workers to remove the Plaintiffs' personal effects from the house. Id. at 73:14-80:4.
Immerman, acting as the Plaintiffs' representative, contacted State Farm to file a claim soon after the damage was discovered. Doc. No. 27-8, at 89:3-13. State Farm sent an agent, James McDade, and an engineer, Robert G. Bryant, Jr., to the house to perform an inspection. Doc. No. 27-11, at 1-2. Upon discovering that the Plaintiffs had not been at the Potomac house since October, State Farm denied the Plaintiffs' claim on grounds that the home was "vacant/unoccupied" at the time of the damage. Id. at 2. The relevant portions of the insurance policy, cited by State Farm as the reason for its denial of coverage, state as follows:
Doc. No. 32 Ex. 4, at 12, 14 (emphasis added).
Following State Farm's denial of coverage, Plaintiffs filed this action. The parties agree that the dispositive issue for the purposes of the pending motions is whether the home was "unoccupied" at the time the damage was sustained.
Summary judgment is only appropriate "if the pleadings, the discovery and disclosure materials on file, and any affidavits show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323-25, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). The Court must "draw all justifiable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, including questions of credibility and of the weight to be accorded to particular evidence." Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496, 520, 111 S.Ct. 2419, 115 L.Ed.2d 447 (1991) (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)). In ruling on a motion for summary judgment, "[c]redibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and the drawing of legitimate inferences from the facts are jury functions, not those of a judge...." Okoli v. City of Baltimore, 648 F.3d 216, 231 (4th Cir.2011) (quoting Anderson, 477 U.S. at 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505).
To defeat a motion for summary judgment, the nonmoving party must come forward with affidavits or other similar evidence to show that a genuine issue of material fact exists. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). A disputed fact presents a genuine issue "if, after reviewing the record as a whole ... a reasonable jury could return a verdict for [the non-moving party]." Evans v. Techs. Applications & Serv. Co., 80 F.3d 954, 959 (4th Cir.1996) (citing Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505). Although the Court should believe the evidence of the nonmoving party and draw all justifiable inferences in his favor, a nonmoving party cannot create a genuine dispute of material fact "through mere speculation or the building of one inference upon another." Beale v. Hardy, 769 F.2d 213, 214 (4th Cir.1985).
The Court will begin by addressing Plaintiffs' argument that the word "unoccupied" is ambiguous. In Maryland, if a term in an insurance contract is ambiguous, and if ambiguity remains after consideration
Maryland law commands that we reject Plaintiffs' assertion of ambiguity. Twice, the Court of Appeals of Maryland has ruled on the meaning of the word "unoccupied" in an insurance contract, and in neither case did the court conclude that the term was ambiguous. In Agricultural Insurance Co. of Watertown, N. Y. v. Hamilton, 82 Md. 88, 33 A. 429 (1895) and Norris v. Connecticut Fire Insurance Co. of Hartford, 115 Md. 174, 80 A. 960, 961 (1911), which both involved "vacant or unoccupied" language substantially similar to the language in question here, the Maryland high court found that there was but one definition of unoccupied:
Norris, 80 A. at 961 (quoting Hamilton, 33 A. at 429). Hence, under Maryland law, there can be only one interpretation of the word "unoccupied" as written into an insurance contract. There is no ambiguity.
The definition put forth in Hamilton and Norris makes it clear that the Potomac house was unoccupied when the damage was sustained. Plaintiffs had not actually been residing in the house for approximately four months when the pipes burst. Doc. No. 27-3, at 109:7-110:21; Doc. No. 27-10, at 70:4-21. Plaintiffs put forward no evidence that any individual had slept in the home for even a single night after their departure. Most importantly, Plaintiffs' behavior served to make the home virtually uninhabitable during their absence. They turned off the cable and phone service, and instructed Immerman to turn off the electricity, which would subsequently have prevented the house from receiving water or heat. Doc. No. 27-3, at 111:9-112:3, 125:16-126:17; Doc. No. 32-2 Ex. 1 at 116:1-3. Plaintiffs believed that they had left their home with no cable, telephone, electricity, heat, or water — a condition that would have made it impossible for anyone to use it for the accustomed and ordinary purposes of a dwelling or place of abode.
A comparison of the facts in the instant action to the facts in Hamilton and Norris further supports the proposition that Plaintiffs' home was unoccupied. In Hamilton, an employee of the house's owner slept in the house in the week before it burned; prior to that week, employees and the son of the house's owner occasionally slept on the premises. Hamilton, 33 A. at 430. In addition, the owner's wife would come to the house daily to pick up provisions that she had stored there. Id. Despite the frequenting of the property, the Hamilton court determined that the home was unoccupied. In this case, no one had slept in the Potomac house in the months between the Plaintiffs' departure and the incursion of the damage, and the house
Plaintiffs rely on two specific facts to distinguish the instant action from Hamilton and Norris. The first is that Plaintiffs plausibly had a firm intent to return in February of 2009. Plaintiffs aver that the home never became unoccupied because they still fully intended to use it as their place of abode when they returned from abroad. Nonetheless, the Hamilton court was clear in declaring that intent to return is not relevant in determinations of unoccupancy:
Hamilton, 33 A. at 431 (emphasis added). The Norris court provides a concrete example of this, finding that "when the occupant of a dwelling house moves out with his family, taking part of his furniture and all the wearing apparel of the family and makes the place of his abode in another town,
Second, Plaintiffs argue that this case can be distinguished from Norris and Hamilton because they left substantial personal property on the premises. This argument is based on a misreading of those cases. The Hamilton court cites, in approval, to several cases from other jurisdictions where courts determined that homes were unoccupied despite the fact that furniture or other personal property was left in the home. Hamilton, 33 A. at 431 (citing Herrman v. Adriatic Fire Ins. Co., 85 N.Y. 162 (1881), Moore v. Phoenix Fire Ins. Co., 64 N.H. 140, 6 A. 27 (1886), and Sexton v. Hawkeye Ins. Co., 69 Iowa 99, 28 N.W. 462 (1886)). In fact, the plaintiffs in Hamilton left beds, a trunk containing clothing, and 50 bushels of wheat, and the court still determined that the house was unoccupied. Hamilton, 33 A. at 431. Hence, that Plaintiffs left a substantial amount of personal property on the premises does not render the home occupied.
Given that occupancy is "absolutely inseparable from an actual, obvious abiding or living" in the insured premises, no reasonable jury could find that the Potomac house was occupied at the time the damage was sustained. Hamilton, 33 A. at 431. Given Plaintiffs' extended absence from the home, the cutting off of utilities, the infrequency of visits to the home, and the complete lack of overnight stays, there
For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment will be
Pending before the Court are the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment. Doc. Nos. 27, 32. For the reasons articulated in the accompanying Memorandum Opinion, it is, this
1) Plaintiffs' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, Doc. No. 27, is
2) Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, Doc. No. 32, is
3) The Clerk of the Court shall
4) The Clerk shall transmit a copy of this Order and accompanying Memorandum Opinion to all counsel of record.