Six legs? Eight legs? Infestation still not covered, says court
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Itsy-bitsy spider is an insect and, to add insult to injury, the hapless creature is vermin, too, a federal appeals court ruled Monday in a fight over insurance coverage.
The case involved an Alabama couple who filed a claim with their homeowners insurer after their house was infested with spiders.
The insurer, Liberty Mutual Insurance Co., denied the claim citing the policy’s exclusion for damage caused by insects or vermin.
Like every middle schooler knows, however, spiders are arachnids, so the couple went to court arguing that the bugs infesting their home were not excluded from coverage.
But the judges on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals were unmoved and upheld a lower court ruling denying coverage.
While dictionaries sometimes specify that spiders are “technically” not insects, Carolus Linnaeus, the father of modern botanical and zoological nomenclature, included all classes of eight-legged arachnids and six-legged insects in the “insecta” classification, the court said, and it was only later that scientists introduced narrower definitions.
“Today, we accept that the scientific community distinguishes between arachnids and insects, but Alabama law cautions against using technical or scientific definitions to interpret the terms of an insurance contract,” the court ruled.
Ordinary people still understand the term “insect” to include spiders, the ruling states.
“That the average person has yet to adopt the scientific vernacular is not unexpected; after all, not every adult recalls the basics of their childhood science lessons as well as they should,” the court said.
Regardless of the six legs/eight legs dispute, the brown recluse spiders in question are still vermin and excluded under the terms of the policy, the ruling states.
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