Insurer seeks exception on Cortina claim
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By Brent Curtis STAFF WRITER - Published: January 28, 2010
An insurance company ordered to pay about $490,000 to a Bennington woman who contracted Legionnaires' disease at the Cortina Inn in Mendon is arguing in federal court that an exception under its policies excludes the claim staked by Gail Stevens.
Earlier this month, Stevens, 57, was awarded $450,000 in damages for pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment in life by a jury that handed down its verdict in Bennington Superior Court. In addition, Judge John Wesley granted Stevens' request for about $42,000 in compensation for medical bills.
But in a case filed late last week in U.S. District Court, Acadia Insurance Co., a Westbrook, Maine, insurer for the now defunct inn, argued that an exclusion in the policy should exempt coverage for Stevens.
The insurer's attorney, Montpelier lawyer Jeffrey Marlin, wrote in a seven-page complaint that an exclusion for "fungi or bacteria" applied to the case.
"The bacteria exclusion endorsement…precludes coverage for the claims asserted," he wrote. "As a result … Acadia has no duty to defend or indemnify La Cortina …."
La Cortina is the corporate name of the Cortina Inn — a 96-room hotel sitting on 43 acres of land along Route 4.
The once popular inn has been closed since 2008 when two tests of the facility's water supply found high concentrations of Legionella, the bacteria responsible for Legionnaires' disease. La Cortina declared bankruptcy in June 2008.
Stevens became ill after a stay at the inn in March 2008, and symptoms of the pneumonia-like infection compounded a pre-existing illness she has, her attorneys have said.
One of Stevens' attorneys, Manchester lawyer Stephen Saltonstall, said Tuesday he had filed a response to Acadia's complaint that charged the insurance company's lawyer with not revealing another part of the insurance policy that voided the cited exception.
"They don't mention there's an exception to that exclusion that says the exclusion doesn't apply to goods or products for use for human consumption," Saltonstall said. "Legionella is carried in water and can be inhaled in droplets in the shower or swallowed in drinking water. The last time I checked, water is a good or product intended for human consumption."
brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com
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