Ford v. Safeco Insurance Co. of America, 2017 Ark. App. 363

Jeffery and Sarah Ford discovered a low spot in their living-room floor in May 2014; a July plumbing test indicated a leak under the house.
The Fords filed an insurance claim the day the leak was detected; Safeco denied the claim, citing several policy exclusions.
Estimated repair cost was about $75,000; the Fords sued Safeco for breach of contract for denying coverage.
Safeco moved for summary judgment, relying on exclusions for settling of foundations/floors and for continuous/repeated leakage or seepage over weeks/months/years.
Safeco submitted an engineer’s affidavit attributing damage to inadequate compaction and settling; the Fords submitted their own expert affidavit attributing damage to a plumbing mechanical failure and stating timing of the failure was speculative.
The trial court granted Safeco’s summary-judgment motion in a one-paragraph order; the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether summary judgment was proper when causation is disputed	Ford: evidence (deposition, expert affidavit) shows plumbing failure caused damage; causation is a factual issue	Safeco: exclusions apply regardless of concurrent causes; summary judgment proper	Court: Reversed — causation is a factual question for the jury and cannot be resolved on summary judgment
Whether settling/cracking exclusion bars coverage	Ford: expert blames plumbing, not foundation settling	Safeco: engineer opines damage from settling due to inadequate compaction	Court: Not decided on summary judgment — cause must be established first
Whether continuous/repeated seepage exclusion bars coverage because of delay between May and July	Ford: they notified insurer promptly once leak was detected; expert says timing uncertain	Safeco: noticing damage in May and filing in July implies leak occurred for weeks	Court: Issue of timing and whether exclusion applies is factual; summary judgment inappropriate
Effect of policy’s broad "directly or indirectly" lead-in clause on concurrent causes	Ford: clause requires first determining cause before applying exclusions	Safeco: clause excludes loss regardless of concurrent causes, so any excluded cause forecloses coverage	Court: Clause does not allow denying coverage without first establishing the cause; cannot bypass causation on summary judgment

Smith v. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. of Ark., 194 S.W.3d 212 (Ark. App. 2004) (summary-judgment standard and burden for oppositions)
Green v. Alpharma, Inc., 284 S.W.3d 29 (Ark. 2008) (causation generally is a question of fact for the jury)