## Facts

- Jerome and Elizabeth Bongen owned a home on Pillar Mountain in Kodiak, Alaska.
- Kodiak Electric Association (KEA) cleared a transmission-line right-of-way above the home on City of Kodiak property.
- After heavy rain on October 31, 1991, a mudslide destroyed the Bongens’ home.
- The Bongens asserted that KEA’s work contributed to or caused the mudslide-related damage.
- The homeowners policy contained an earth-movement exclusion stating that losses would not be covered if they would not have occurred absent earth movement, “regardless of” the cause of the earth movement or whether other causes acted concurrently or in sequence.
- The exclusion defined “earth movement” to include landslide and mudflow.
- State Farm denied coverage based on the exclusion; the Bongens sued State Farm and also sued KEA and the City of Kodiak alleging negligence.
- The superior court granted partial summary judgment for the Bongens on coverage, holding the exclusion unenforceable under an efficient proximate cause approach.
- State Farm petitioned for review to the Alaska Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether Alaska property-insurance law applies the efficient proximate cause rule to losses involving both covered and excluded causes.
2. Whether an insurer may, by clear anti-concurrent-cause language, contract out of the efficient proximate cause rule for multi-cause losses.
3. Whether a broadly worded earth-movement exclusion is enforceable when the earth movement is allegedly triggered by human negligence, in light of ambiguity, reasonable expectations, or public policy.

## Decision

- The Alaska Supreme Court reversed the superior court.
- The court held the earth-movement exclusion was clear, unambiguous, and enforceable.
- The court held that explicit anti-concurrent-cause language may displace the efficient proximate cause rule as a default doctrine.
- The court concluded the exclusion applied to mudslide damage even if negligent construction or clearing contributed to the event, and State Farm therefore owed no coverage.

## Legal Principles

- Efficient proximate cause operates as a default rule for multi-cause losses but may be altered by explicit policy language.
- Anti-concurrent-cause provisions barring coverage “regardless of” other contributing causes are enforceable when clearly drafted and not prohibited by statute or established public policy.
- An earth-movement exclusion that expressly includes landslide/mudflow and applies regardless of the cause of earth movement can extend to human-caused earth movement.
- Reasonable-expectations doctrine does not override clear, prominent, and understandable exclusions.

## Conclusion

The Alaska Supreme Court enforced an anti-concurrent-cause earth-movement exclusion to bar coverage for a mudslide loss, holding that clear policy language may contract out of efficient proximate cause treatment and may apply even when negligence allegedly triggered the earth movement.


State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Bongen, 925 P.2d 1042 (Alaska 1996)