An Argo Group unit has no duty to defend a pool construction company in a trademark infringement coverage dispute, a federal appeals court said Monday in affirming a lower court ruling.

The U.S. District Court in Sacramento, California, correctly rejected an argument by Sacramento-based Premier Pools Management Corp. that the underlying trademark infringement lawsuit triggered a duty by Argo Group unit Colony Insurance Co. “to defend the firm for ‘personal and advertising injury’ caused by PPMC’s alleged disparagement, use of another’s ‘advertising idea,’ and use of another’s ‘slogan,’” said the ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in Premier Pools Management Corp. v. Colony Insurance Co.

“PPMC failed to tender the amended complaint containing the relevant, new disparagement allegations, so Colony owed no duty to investigate those allegations or to defend PPMC against them as a matter of law,” said the ruling by a three-judge appeals court panel, which noted it had ruled against PPMC on the duty to defend issue in a prior opinion in the same case.

“And the plaintiff in the trademark infringement lawsuit accused PPMC of infringing the company name ‘Premier Pools,’ which the plaintiff repeatedly characterized as a trademark – the infringement of which Colony policies do not cover – and not an ‘advertising idea; or a slogan,’ the ruling said.

The panel also held that because Colony did not owe PPMC a duty to defend, the company’s indemnity and bad faith claims fail as a matter of law.

Premier Pools attorney Richard L. Antognini, of the Law Offices of Richard L. Antognini in Grass Valley, California, said, “It’s an unpublished decision by a federal appeals court on issues of California state law, so I don’t think it’ll have much of an impact” on intellectual property claims. “The analysis is very short” and “more of a statement of conclusions than a really thorough analysis of the issues,” he said.

Argo’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.