{"id":471,"date":"2023-02-16T12:41:24","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T16:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/?p=471"},"modified":"2023-02-16T12:41:24","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T16:41:24","slug":"accs-and-epc-ninth-circuit-certifies-question-of-whether-policy-provision-can-circumvent-efficient-proximate-cause-doctrine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/2023\/02\/16\/accs-and-epc-ninth-circuit-certifies-question-of-whether-policy-provision-can-circumvent-efficient-proximate-cause-doctrine\/","title":{"rendered":"ACCs and EPC: Ninth Circuit Certifies Question of Whether Policy Provision Can Circumvent Efficient Proximate Cause Doctrine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/danielbheidtke.html\">Daniel B. Heidtke<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit certified the following questions to the Montana Supreme Court: \u201cWhether an anti-concurrent cause (\u2018ACC\u2019) clause in an insurance policy applies to defeat insurance coverage despite Montana\u2019s recognition of the efficient proximate cause (\u2018EPC\u2019) doctrine\u201d and, if so, whether the relevant language in the policy at issue was an ACC clause that effectively circumvented the EPC doctrine.<\/p>\n<p>In <em>Ward v. Safeco Insurance Co. of America, <\/em>Case No. 21-35757, the Court first analyzed Montana\u2019s EPC doctrine, which provides: \u201cwhere covered and noncovered perils contribute to a loss, the peril that set in motion the chain of events leading to the loss or the predominating cause is deemed the efficient proximate cause or legal cause of loss.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Safeco argued that the ACC clause in its policy \u201coverrides the normal operation of the EPC doctrine, such that there is no coverage where <em>any<\/em> excluded peril caused the loss to <em>any <\/em>extent (even if a covered peril was the efficient proximate cause of the loss).\u201d\u00a0 Further, the Court noted that, in certain instances, the Montana Supreme Court had allowed parties to an insurance contract to agree to exclusions that are not statutorily prohibited.\u00a0 The Court also noted that, other courts, such as the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, \u201chave found that parties are free to contract around\u201d the application of the EPC.\u00a0 <em>TNT Speed &amp; Sport Ctr. v. American States Ins. Co.<\/em>, 114 F.3d 731, 733 (8th Cir. 1997) (collecting cases).<\/p>\n<p>It remains to be seen whether the Montana Supreme Court will answer the call.\u00a0 Other courts that have considered the issue, such as Nevada, have noted that \u201c[t]he efficient proximate cause doctrine is a default rule which gives way to the language of the contract.\u201d\u00a0 <em>Pioneer Chlor Alkali Co. v. National Union, <\/em>863 F. Supp. 1226, 1232 (D. Nev. 1994); <em>see also, e.g., Garmany of Red Bank, Inc. v. Harleysville Ins. Co.<\/em>, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50985, at *13 (D.N.J. Mar. 18, 2021); <em>Moody v. Hartford Fin. Grp., Inc., <\/em>513 F. Supp. 3d 496, 510 (E.D. Pa. 2021).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By: Daniel B. Heidtke Earlier this month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit certified the following questions to the Montana Supreme Court: \u201cWhether an anti-concurrent cause (\u2018ACC\u2019) clause in an insurance policy applies to defeat insurance coverage despite Montana\u2019s recognition of the efficient proximate cause (\u2018EPC\u2019) doctrine\u201d and, if so, whether &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/2023\/02\/16\/accs-and-epc-ninth-circuit-certifies-question-of-whether-policy-provision-can-circumvent-efficient-proximate-cause-doctrine\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;ACCs and EPC: Ninth Circuit Certifies Question of Whether Policy Provision Can Circumvent Efficient Proximate Cause Doctrine&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[431],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"authors":[{"term_id":431,"user_id":243,"is_guest":0,"slug":"dbheidtke","display_name":"Daniel B. Heidtke","avatar_url":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2024\/10\/Danny-Heidtke-LinkedIn-6249-e1729870422263-100x100.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/insurancelaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}