Shaw v. Farm Bureau Property & Casualty Insurance Co., No. 21-1481 (8th Cir. 2022)
Annotate this CaseThe Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs in an action brought against their insurance company, seeking payment of the policy limit in full on the claim for the second of two fires that destroyed their house. Because the plain language of the Total Loss Valuation provision, the context of the rest of the policy, and Minnesota's background common-law principles all support plaintiffs' result-based interpretation, the court concluded that the second fire alone caused a total loss. Therefore, plaintiffs were entitled to the full policy limits over and above what the insurer had paid for damages caused by the first fire.
Court Description: [Gruender, Author, with Erickson and Stras, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Insurance. The district court did not err in determining that where plaintiffs had suffered a total loss of their home in a second fire, they were entitled to the full policy limits over and above what the insurer had paid for damages caused by a previous fire. [ January 20, 2022 ]
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.