Once Upon a Time, LLC v. Chappelle Properties, LLC

Once Upon a Time,LLC ("OUAT"), appealed by permission a circuit court decision denying OUAT's motion seeking a summary judgment on the third-party complaint filed against it by Chappelle Properties, LLC ("Chappelle"). Chappelle owned a building in Birmingham containing at least two commercial retail spaces. Chappelle and OUAT entered into a commercial lease agreement in which Chappelle agreed to lease one of the commercial retail spaces to OUAT. The agreement contained an indemnity clause. Deborah Anderson worked for OUAT as a sales clerk. In late 2011, the OUAT retail space was flooded with contaminated water. Certain items of OUAT's inventory were moved from the OUAT retail space to Chappelle's vacant commercial retail space. Although Anderson was not working on the day of the incident, in the days following she counted inventory that had been moved to the vacant retail space. In late 2013, Anderson filed a complaint alleging that she had suffered a bacterial infection caused by her handling the allegedly contaminated OUAT inventory stored in the vacant retail space following the flood of the OUAT-leased retail space. In 2014, Chappelle filed a third-party complaint against OUAT and its managers that sought, among other things, indemnification pursuant to the indemnity clause in the agreement. OUAT alleged that the indemnity clause in the agreement did not cover the claims asserted by Anderson in her complaint. After review of the circuit court record, the Supreme Court reversed the circuit court's order denying OUAT's summary-judgment motion. The Court held that the indemnity clause should not have been interpreted to include incidents occurring in the vacant retail space. View "Once Upon a Time, LLC v. Chappelle Properties, LLC" on Justia Law