Case of the leaking corpse: Court won't revisit condo owner claim against insurer

Jupiter woman unable to convince State Farm, courts that policy covered damage from dead body

Article Courtesy of The Sun Sentinel

By Marc Freeman  

Published August 28, 2014

 

A Jupiter woman's insurance claim over a leaking corpse next door is now a dead issue.

The 4th District Court of Appeal on Wednesday said it won't reexamine its April decision concerning Judy Rodrigo's long battle with State Farm.

Rodrigo's condo neighbor died in 2007 and the woman's body decomposed before it was discovered. This resulted in bodily fluids "which infiltrated the walls" and caused damage to Rodrigo's unit, Judge Melanie G. May wrote in a revised opinion.

Rodrigo filed a lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court in 2008, after the insurance company refused to pay as much as she wanted for the "explosion" at her home.

The policy only covered damage to personal property in the event of a so-called "named peril," which include explosions, records show.

State Farm disagreed a decomposing body constituted an explosion. It still offered Rodrigo an unspecified payment, but denied liability for damage to Rodrigo's personal property. Rodrigo refused the settlement, according to court filings.

On Wednesday, the appellate court stuck by its opinion that the company was justified in its response.

Rodrigo had submitted an affidavit from a doctor who said the "internal contents" of the neighbor's corpse "explosively expanded and leaked."

Judge May wrote that even though Rodrigo's policy didn't define the term explosion, case law dictates that plain language definitions apply in insurance contracts.

"The plain meaning of the term 'explosion' does not include a decomposing body's cells explosively expanding, causing leakage of bodily fluids," May wrote in favor of State Farm, adding Rodrigo's claim was "novel."

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