PITTSBURGH – An Erie insurance company is litigating on behalf of 17 of its policyholders who all lost personal property and possessions in a storage unit fire two years ago, claiming that the defendants’ negligence in failing to verify the operation of the unit’s sprinkler system led to the severity of the fire at issue.
Erie Insurance Exchange (a/s/o Joseph and Susan Leader, William Dobransky, William Doyle, Shelley and Lon Farr, Linda Frank, Nathaniel Franskousky, Charles and Judith Hartman, Michael Kumnik, Michael Lieb, Anthony Mauro, Quinn Passarelli, Gary Ruhle, Mark Schmidt and Stephen Yarnot) of Erie filed suit in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on April 9 versus OFFICExpress, LLC and SX Management, LLC (doing business as “STORExpress”) of Wexford, EKM Construction, Inc. of Burlington, N.C. and Approved Fire Protection, Inc. of Greenburg.
The suit explains the plaintiff provided insurance policies to each of the plaintiffs.
“Defendant STORExpress was the owner of the property situated in the Borough of Etna, within Allegheny County, at 400 Butler Street, which it acquired on July 20, 2012. Alternatively, at all times relevant hereto, defendant SX was the owner of the ‘property,” the suit states.
“At all times relevant hereto, defendants, STORExpress and SX, either individually or jointly, operated and managed the ‘property’ as a self-storage facility (the ‘Etna Facility’), in which it provided enclosed space to the public for a fee. The ‘property’ contained over 900 rental units, in which consumers stored personal property, including hundreds of classic, antique and rare vehicles worth close to sixty million dollars. On various dates, plaintiff’s insureds rented space in the property to store items of their personal property, including the vehicles described in paragraphs 2 through 6 of this complaint.”
On May 8, 2019, a fire occurred at the property, which spread throughout the building and became a seven-alarm fire which injured five firefighters, and during which a 55-gallon drum of gasoline was reported to have exploded.
The fire further caused “extensive, catastrophic damage to the property owned by plaintiff’s insureds”, and during the time the fire was being fought, firefighters discovered that the fire sprinkler system had not been working.
“Three different water supply valves for the sprinkler system were determined to be in the off position, and three drains in the system piping were determined to be in the open position, thus preventing water to appropriately flow to the sprinkler heads. According to the Etna Fire Chief, had the sprinkler system been functioning, the fire could have been contained to a small number of units, rather than involving nearly the entire building,” per the suit.
“As a result of the aforesaid damage, plaintiff’s insureds presented claims for the damage to their vehicles pursuant to the terms and conditions of the aforesaid policies of insurance, and plaintiff paid such claims to or for the benefit of its insureds. To the extent of the payments made by plaintiff to its insureds, and pursuant to the policy of insurance and by operation of law and equity, plaintiff brings this action as subrogee to the rights of its insureds.”
For counts of willful, deliberate and wanton misconduct, violation of the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, negligence, gross negligence and recklessness, intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, violation of codes and standards, the plaintiff is seeking damages in excess of $50,000 in its favor and against the defendants, plus interest, costs, attorney fees and such other relief as aforesaid that this Court may deem just and proper.
The plaintiff is represented by Robert Smolen of Gaul & Associates, in Philadelphia.
The defendants have not yet obtained legal counsel.
Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas case GD-21-003603
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com