The issue in Ledcor1 was whether the builder's risk policy taken out by the contractor that was contractually responsible for cleaning the windows of a building, covered damage to the windows caused by its poor cleaning work. The financial impact was significant since the cost of re-doing the cleaning was $45,000, while the cost of replacing the damaged windows amounted to $2.5 million. The Supreme Court decided that only the cost of re-doing the cleaning was excluded and so replacement of the windows, which was damage resulting from the faulty workmanship, was covered.
The decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ledcor has clarified the interpretation of the faulty workmanship exclusion in builder's risk insurance cases by limiting it to defective work and connecting the scope of the exclusion to the contractual obligations of the contractor responsible for the faulty workmanship ( our Lavery bulletin on this issue can be accessed by clicking here). We would start by pointing out that the wording of the faulty workmanship exclusion in Ledcor2 is similar to the usual wording for this type of exclusion in builder's risk policies.
The decision in Ledcor is a landmark ruling. The approach it suggests, of examining the obligations set out in the contract in order to draw the line between faulty workmanship and damage caused by the faulty workmanship, is easy to apply in cases where the contract has only one component, as was the case in Ledcor.
However, in cases where a faulty contractor's contract has multiple severable components and the defective work relates to only one of them, applying the contract-based approach presents problems. In that situation...
