The court granted the insured's motion to strike the testimony of the insurer's expert because the opinion lacked sufficient explanation or analysis. Affinity Mut. Ins. v. Thacker Air Conditioning Refrigeration Heating, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84713 (N.D. Ind. May 20, 2019).
The insured owned a market that needed renovations. The roof over an addition to the market extended from the wall of the extension to the top of the existing roof. The area between the old and new roofs was filled with blown-in insulation, so that the structural support from the new overbuilt roof was not visible. The weight of the overbuilt roof rested on top of the existing roof at the point where they met. This added additional weight on the trusses supporting the main roof.
In 2014, the market upgraded the building with heating and insulation. Thacker was a subcontractor for work on the hearing system. Six gas furnaces, spaced about 35 feet apart along the length of the building, were placed by Thacker. The total weight of each unit was estimated at 280 pounds.
In February 2015, a snowstorm resulted in 14 to 15 inches of heavy, wet snow accumulating on the roof. Employees of the market got on the roof to shovel off the snow. A truss broke and a large portion of the roof collapsed.
The market sought coverage from Affinity. Affinity then sued Thacker, asserting claims for negligence and breach of warranty, arguing that Thacker was at fault for the collapse.
Affinity retained Daniel Honig, a structural engineer, who issued a report that the roof collapsed because of Thacker's placement of the heating units. Thacker moved to strike Honig's opinion.
The court could not discern any logical explanation or methodology in Honig's report for how he reached his opinion that the heating units caused the collapse. Honig noted that the roof should not have collapsed because the building code required roofs to sustain about twice the amount of weight as the snowstorm here would have added. He did not tie that into his opinion that the heating units caused the collapse. He did not opine that the building complied with the code prior to the installation of the heating units, such that fault for the collapse could be attributed to those units. Instead, he opined that "there was significant structural loading capacity deficiencies within this preexisting roof framing system." An admission that the structure was defective even before the heating units were installed would seem to call for an analysis of that structure's capacity and whether it would have been able to withstand the snow even without the addition of the heating units.
The lack of analysis and explanation was fatal to Honig's opinion. The motion to strike was granted.
