In 2015, when the Appellate Division, First Department, handed down its decision in Burlington Insurance Company v. NYC Transit Authority, 132 A.D.3d 127 (1st Dep’t 2015) (holding where an additional insured endorsement provides coverage for “acts or omissions” of the named insured, coverage is extended even when the named insured was not negligent), insurance law mavens noted that the court was continuing on a course of expansion of additional insured coverage. See, e.g., Dan D. Kohane & Audrey A. Seeley, “Insurance Law,” 66 Syracuse L. Rev. 999, 1004 (2016).
Recently, that course of expansion has reached its terminus at the Court of Appeals, which reversed the First Department by rejecting the argument that any additional insured obligation is owed under the language of the Burlington endorsement at issue when the named insured is without fault. Burlington Insurance Company v. NYC Transit Authority, ___N.Y.3d___ (2017), 2017 NY Slip Op. 04384. Specifically, the New York State Court of Appeals held that when an insurance policy states that additional insured coverage applies to bodily injury “caused, in whole or in part” by the “acts or omissions” of the named insured, the coverage applies when the injuries are “proximately caused by the named insured.”
