All Saints Catholic Church v. United National: The Segregation Rule in Practice
A Texas Supreme Court decision that reinforced how strictly courts apply the burden to segregate covered from excluded damage.
In Wallis v. United Servs. Auto. Ass'n and the line running through All Saints Catholic Church v. United National Insurance Co., 257 S.W.3d 800 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2008, pet. denied) and the Texas Supreme Court's later concurrent-causation cases, Texas courts have made one thing clear: when covered and excluded perils combine, it is the insured's burden to prove which damage came from which cause.
In All Saints, the church suffered wind, hail, and long-term water intrusion damage. The carrier accepted some perils and rejected others, and the court refused to let the jury award the total damage without evidence tying dollar amounts to the covered perils specifically. A single lump-sum estimate is not enough.
The practical consequence is that engineering and estimating discipline is not a nice-to-have. Every line item in a serious property scope should be able to answer three questions: what is damaged, what peril caused it, and what does it cost to repair. When those three columns are filled out, the segregation burden is met on paper.
Citation: All Saints Catholic Church v. United Nat'l Ins. Co., 257 S.W.3d 800 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2008, pet. denied); JAW The Pointe v. Lexington, 460 S.W.3d 597 (Tex. 2015).