| Saitta v New York City Tr. Auth. |
| 2008 NY Slip Op 07998 [55 AD3d 422] |
| October 23, 2008 |
| Appellate Division, First Department |
| Michael Saitta, Plaintiff, v New York City TransitAuthority et al., Defendants. New York City Transit Authority et al., Defendants. New York CityTransit Authority et al., Third-Party Plaintiffs-Respondents, v Allianz Insurance Company,Third-Party Defendant-Appellant, et al., Third-Party Defendant. |
—[*1] Smith Mazure Director Wilkins Young & Yagerman, P.C., New York (Joel M. Simon ofcounsel), for respondents.
Order, Supreme Court, Bronx County (Kenneth L. Thompson, Jr., J.), entered January 9,2008, which, in a third-party action seeking a declaration that third-party defendant insurer(Allianz) is obligated to defend and indemnify third-party plaintiffs additional insureds(collectively the Transit Authority) in the main action for personal injuries brought by anemployee of Allianz's named insured, granted the Transit Authority's motion for summaryjudgment, unanimously affirmed, with costs.
It should have been apparent to Allianz that all of the information it needed to issue a denialof coverage was contained in the enclosures forwarded by the Transit Authority along with itsnotice of the accident, including that the Transit Authority's claim arose out of the work ofAllianz's named insured, that the injured person was an employee of the named insured, and thatthe Transit Authority's notice of the accident was untimely. Accordingly, Allianz's nearlyfour-month delay in disclaiming coverage, measured from its receipt of the Transit Authority'snotice of the accident, was unreasonable as a matter of law, absent a reasonable explanation forthe delay (see First Fin. Ins. Co. v Jetco Contr. Corp., 1 NY3d 64, 68-69, 70 [2003]). Itdoes not avail Allianz to argue that it was not required to limit its investigation to the TransitAuthority's [*2]delay, where its claims examiner could not say, ather deposition, what other grounds for denying coverage were investigated.Concur—Lippman, P.J., Andrias, Saxe, Sweeny and DeGrasse, JJ.