{"id":248488,"date":"2025-05-20T04:57:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T04:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/insurance\/reasonable-care-to-protect-property-dallas-fort-worth-insurance-lawyer-blog-may-17-2025\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T04:57:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T04:57:34","slug":"reasonable-care-to-protect-property-dallas-fort-worth-insurance-lawyer-blog-may-17-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=248488","title":{"rendered":"Reasonable Care To Protect Property \u2014 Dallas Fort Worth Insurance Lawyer Blog \u2014 May 17, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Almost all homeowners policies will require the insured to use \u201creasonable care\u201d to protect their property from damages. \u00a0Here is a 2025 opinion from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.txs.uscourts.gov\/offices\/houston-division\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Southern District of Texas, Houston Division<\/a>, that deals with that issue. \u00a0The opinion is styled, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insurancelawsection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Giwa-v.-State-Farm-Lloyds.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dorcas Giwa v. State Farm Lloyds<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/wex\/summary_judgment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">summary judgement<\/a> case.<\/p>\n<p>The facts of the case are that Giwa flew to Africa. \u00a0While in Africa, the <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/business\/3478647-a-timeline-of-the-covid-19-economy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Covid-19 shutdown<\/a> in the U.S. began and, apparently due to the travel restrictions, she was unable to return home for over a year. \u00a0As a result, as <a href=\"https:\/\/recovery.houstontx.gov\/dr21\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Winter Storm Uri<\/a> approached in February 2021, Giwa asked her three adult children, including her son, Kay Giwa, to take care of her home in her absence. \u00a0The night before the storm hit, Kay son wrapped the pipes, opened all the cabinet doors, drained the faucets, and turned off the main water line connected to the house. \u00a0However, Kay turned the main heating system off because \u201cit was warm in the house,\u201d and he was trying to \u201cfollow the local city guidelines.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After the first day of the storm, the children observed no damage but noted that the power had gone out. \u00a0On the forth day of the storm, the children notice the power was back on, but there was water coming from the ceiling. \u00a0The home sustained significant damage and a claim was made to State Farm.<\/p>\n<p>State Farm denied the claim due to the heater thermostat being in the \u201cOFF\u201d position and the policy required that steps be taken to insure against loss. \u00a0State Farm argued that it was not reasonable to have the heater turned off.<\/p>\n<p>The Court then went into an analysis of whether or not the actions taken by the Giwa\u2019s was sufficient under the circumstances. \u00a0The Court determined that this was a fact issue to be determined by a fact finder and that it was not appropriate for a summary judgment. \u00a0The motion was denied.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost all homeowners policies will require the insured to use \u201creasonable care\u201d to protect their property from damages. \u00a0Here is a 2025 opinion from the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, that deals with that issue. \u00a0The opinion is styled, Dorcas Giwa v. State Farm Lloyds. This is a summary judgement case. The facts of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[3767,760,14667,2538,11034,13466,14928,1409,38931,11288],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-248488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insurance","tag-blog","tag-care","tag-dallas","tag-fort","tag-insurance","tag-lawyer","tag-property","tag-protect","tag-reasonable","tag-worth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Reasonable Care To Protect Property \u2014 Dallas Fort Worth Insurance Lawyer Blog \u2014 May 17, 2025 - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=248488\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reasonable Care To Protect Property \u2014 Dallas Fort Worth Insurance Lawyer Blog \u2014 May 17, 2025 - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Almost all homeowners policies will require the insured to use \u201creasonable care\u201d to protect their property from damages. \u00a0Here is a 2025 opinion from the Southern District of Texas, Houston Division, that deals with that issue. \u00a0The opinion is styled, Dorcas Giwa v. 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