Professional Liability

Key Points:

• Determining residency in the context of an insurance policy, while reliant on facts, can be resolved as a matter of law.
• Dual residency can be extended beyond the typical factual situations to homes, even if the insured is not actively living in the home, so long as they can prove “regular and habitual” ties.

In Isenberg v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 2022 WL 1720334 (W.D. Pa. May 27, 2022) (Schwab, J.), a fire destroyed the plaintiff’s recently-purchased home. The defendant insurance carrier investigated her claim and ultimately rescinded the homeowner’s policy it had issued to her for the home. During its investigation, the defendant concluded that Isenberg had not been using the insured home as a “residence” because, from the date of her purchase of the home to the time of the fire, she continued to live in a separate apartment with her children.

Litigation ensued, and after the close of fact discovery, the defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that, since Isenberg was not using the insured home as a “residence,” she was not entitled to coverage under the homeowners’ policy. The defendant cited, among other facts, that Isenberg’s children attended the school district associated with the apartment rather than the school district associated with the home.

Isenberg admitted she was living in the apartment but argued she had “daily contact” with the home as she was in the process of renovating the home for her family. She also argued that she ate some meals there, stored personal possessions there and slept there from time to time.

The United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania interpreted the defendant’s argument as limiting a person to only one residence. The court interpreted Isenberg’s argument as positing that a person many have more than one residence. The court observed that Pennsylvania and federal courts within the Third Circuit “have agreed or at least assumed” that a person is not limited to one residence.

The court looked to previous decisions from the District Courts of the Third Circuit and noted that the term “residence,” when used in homeowners’ insurance policies, has been determined to be unambiguous even if undefined by the policy. Case law provides that “residence” refers to factual place of abode evidenced by a person’s physical presence in a particular place which requires, at minimum, some measure of permanency or habitual repetition. Residence is a question of “physical fact,” and the intentions of the purported resident are not relevant.

The court ultimately determined that the facts before it supported a finding that Isenberg resided at the home (and, therefore, was entitled to coverage under the homeowner’s policy for the fire claim). The court pointed to the fact that Isenberg was physically present in the home almost daily while rehabbing it for her family. The court found it significant that Isenberg ate some meals at the home, occasionally slept at the home, and that she and her children had a significant number of personal possessions at the home. Thus, the court determined that Isenberg had “regular and habitual” ties to the home such that it qualified as one of her residences under the terms of the homeowner’s policy.

Determinations relating to whether an insured has more than one residence for the purposes of an insurance policy typically arise in the context of minor children with divorced parents (residence at both parental households) or adult children attending college (despite living at college, they can remain residents of the parental household). The Isenberg case is unique because the court found that the home was one of (adult) Isenberg’s residences, despite her admission that she had never lived at the home, despite her sending her children to the school district associated with the apartment where they were actually living and not the school district associated with the home, despite her only having “some” meals at the home, and despite her and her family storing “numerous”—but not all—personal possessions at the home.

Ultimately, in cases such as these, it’s not necessarily where you actually live that may be considered your residence. A person is not limited to one residence.