concurrent causation
A doctrine originating in a 1973 California Supreme Court case,
which held that, when a covered risk and an excluded risk constitute
"concurrent proximate causes" of an accident, "the insurer is liable
so long as one of the causes is covered by the policy." Although
this ruling came from a third-party liability case, in the early
1980s, some lower courts in California began applying this "concurrent
proximate cause" statement to first-party property policies. The
result was that policies with exclusions of loss due to flood or
earthquake were held to cover these losses because a contributing
factor in the loss, such as zoning decisions or the negligence of
a contractor, was not specifically excluded from coverage. In response,
anti-concurrent causation (ACC) language was added to standard homeowners,
commercial property, and other first-party property policy forms
in the early and mid-1980s. In 1989, the California Supreme Court
corrected the wayward lower court holdings, declaring that the "concurrent
proximate cause" doctrine did not apply outside the context of third-party
liability insurance. See also
Anti-concurrent causation language;
Proximate cause.
Links for IRMI Online Subscribers
Only:
CPI IV.J;
CRM VII.N;
TRR 2/1999