Most insurance policies contain clauses excluding coverage for certain conditions. In policies insuring hog operations, specifically, many policies exclude coverage for loss of livestock due to suffocation. Here, a hog farmer filed a claim with his insurer relating to the death of several hogs in confinement. The farmer claimed that the hogs died because an ice storm caused the curtains on the building to remain closed, thereby cutting off ventilation for the hogs. However, the insurer refused to pay, citing an exclusionary clause in the insurance policy whereby the loss of livestock by suffocation is not covered.
The trial court granted dismissal of the case for the insurer, citing the language of the exclusionary clause in the policy. The court found that, regardless of the ice storm, the death of the animals was “caused” by suffocation. The farmer appealed and claimed that the court misapplied the law and the proximate cause of the loss of the hogs was the ice storm. The Iowa Court of Appeals found that cause is interpreted differently in insurance cases, than in tort cases (tort analysis was used by the trial court). In insurance policies, direct cause of loss is interpreted as the immediate or proximate cause of the loss. The farmer argued, on appeal, that the ice storm set into motion a “chain of events” that resulted in the death of the hogs. The eventual suffocation would not have happened but for the ice storm causing the curtains to remain closed. Based upon the testimony of a veterinarian and farm employees, the court found that there should have been a trial on the issue of the cause of the loss. Therefore, the case was remanded to the trial court with instructions to utilize the appropriate proximate cause analysis. Clasing v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Co., No. 08/1060/ 08-1237, 2009 Iowa App. LEXIS 501 (Iowa Ct. App., May 29, 2009).