Court Of Appeal For Ontario Upholds Insurer's Successful Motion For Summary Judgment

Last month, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ("ONCA") dismissed an appeal of the judgment of Dow J granting our client's motion for summary judgment in 2689686 Ontario Inc. v Lloyd's Underwriters et al. Our defence team, Chet Wydrzynski and Raya Sidhu, acted for the insurer, Lloyd's Underwriters ("Lloyd's") and Gerry Gill, a partner at DWF, acted for Lloyd's on appeal. We are pleased to have achieved this result for our client.

In dismissing the appeal, ONCA deferred to Dow J's assessment of the evidence in finding that the "frost or freezing" exclusion applied and reiterated that the doctrine of nullification was only applicable for policies with "illusory coverage" where enforcement of an exclusion would result in negation of coverage for all anticipated risks.