A Coverage Question Settled at the Supreme Court

Represented a manufacturing policyholder before the Supreme Court of the United States in a first-party coverage dispute turning on when a business interruption claim accrues under a policy's two-year contractual limitations provision. The Eleventh Circuit had held the period runs from the date of physical loss, deepening a split with the Second, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits. The Court vacated that judgment, holding that the limitations period begins at the insurer's final denial, and remanded for merits consideration.

The Coverage Dispute and Eleventh Circuit Proceedings

The client sustained a covered equipment failure that halted production at two facilities. The carrier acknowledged the claim, conducted a fourteen-month adjustment, and issued a final denial. Suit followed within two years of that denial but more than two years after the loss itself. The district court granted summary judgment to the carrier on limitations grounds, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed, holding that the clock ran from the physical loss regardless of the adjustment period the carrier itself controlled.

The Circuit Split on Accrual

Four circuits had held that a first-party claim accrues at final denial, reasoning that a policyholder cannot sue on a claim the insurer has not yet resolved and that a loss-date rule lets a carrier consume the limitations period through its own adjustment. Two circuits, including the Eleventh, had adopted the loss-date rule on the text of the standard-form provision. The petition framed the question narrowly around the interaction between the contractual limitations clause and the policy's own cooperation and proof-of-loss conditions.

Certiorari and Argument

The team prepared the petition around the structural incoherence of the loss-date rule: the same policy that starts the clock at loss also bars suit until the insured has complied with conditions the carrier administers on its own timetable. Certiorari was granted in October 2025. Briefing addressed the standard-form language, the state-law backdrop across the split, and the practical consequences for policyholders in extended adjustments. Argument was held in March 2026.

The Court's Ruling

The Court vacated the Eleventh Circuit's judgment, holding that a first-party claim subject to a contractual limitations provision accrues when the insurer issues its final denial. The opinion reasoned that a suit filed before denial would be unripe under the policy's own conditions, and that reading the clause to run from loss would render the cooperation conditions a mechanism for extinguishing claims. The Court remanded for consideration of the coverage merits, which the lower courts had not reached.

Outcome and Significance

The ruling restored the client's ability to litigate a coverage claim that had been resolved on timeliness alone, and it settled an accrual question that had produced inconsistent outcomes for policyholders depending on where a loss occurred. Because the provision at issue appears in widely used standard-form commercial property policies, the holding applies well beyond the parties. Carriers and policyholders now measure the limitations period from the same event nationwide.