The New York Court of Appeals in its February 2014 session issued within several days of each other two significant insurance coverage decisions, K2 Investment Group v. American Guarantee & Liability Ins. (K2 II) (Feb. 18, 2014) and Executive Plaza v. Peerless Ins. (Feb. 13, 2014). K2 II allows liability carriers to breathe a sigh of relief. Executive Plaza takes a small bite out of the contractual two-year lawsuit limitations period in New York fire insurance policies.
K2 II was the more extraordinary of the two decisions. However, this was not because of its holding. The K2 II holding reinstated old law and eliminated a judicial economy rule the court had created only eight months earlier in K2 Inv. Group v. Am. Guar. & Liab. Ins., 21 NY3d 384 (2013) (K2 I). The extraordinary part of K2 II was that the court granted a motion for reargument of K2 I, decided it had been wrong in K2 I, and vacated K2 I. According to those knowledgeable of the court’s practice, over the last decades the court has granted motions for reargument about the same number of times as there are fingers remaining on the right hand of an old saw mill worker.
