Abstract
A critical issue pervading the realm of commercial insurance contract law concerns the clarity of provisions contained in policy agreements. Insurance policies containing unclear or complicated language may give rise to situations in which the actual intentions of the contracting parties are not reflected in the technical terms of the policy. The parties' conflicting expectations often lead to costly litigation. In such cases, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has made it clear that it will ordinarily rule against the party who wrote the policy (the insurer) and in favor of the party whose expectations were unfulfilled (the insured). The Law Court most recently confronted the issue of readability and ambiguity in insurance policies in Baybutt Construction Corp. v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., in which the court found ambiguity in the subject policy and held in favor of the insured. The Baybutt court, however, may have mistaken complexity for ambiguity in the policy's comprehensive general liability insurance provisions, and may thus have extended coverage beyond the original intentions of the parties. The effect of the Law Court's interpretation thus seems to have been to create a new contract, a function exceeding the court's jurisdiction. An examination of the relevant case law and policy considerations suggests that the Law Court should have followed the example of the majority of jurisdictions deciding this same issue, and held in favor of the insurer.
First Page
179
Recommended Citation
Peter A. Meyer,
Baybutt Construction Corp. v. Commercial Union Insurance Co.: A Question of Ambiguity in Comprehensive General Liability Insurance Policies,
36
Me. L. Rev.
179
(1984).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol36/iss1/8