Court Of Appeal Confirms Damage Following Controlled Detonation Of WWII Bomb Was "Occasioned By War"

• Published date: 10 January 2024
• Subject Matter: Insurance, Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Real Estate and Construction, Insurance Laws and Products, Trials & Appeals & Compensation, Construction & Planning
• Law Firm: Gowling WLG
• Author: Mr Ashley Pigott, Samantha Holland, Jatinder Sahota and Emma Knight

In March 2023, we reported on the High Court decision in Allianz Insurance plc v University of Exeter, in which the court:

• held that damage caused in 2021 by the controlled detonation of a World War II (WWII) bomb was "occasioned by war" and thus fell within the scope of a War Exclusion clause; and
• granted the declaration sought by Allianz that it was entitled to decline the university's insurance claim.

The Court of Appeal has now dismissed the university's appeal in University of Exeter v Allianz Insurance PLC and confirmed that the damage was excluded from the applicable insurance policy.

Notably, Lord Justice Coulson commented that while "unguided gut feeling" may suggest that damage caused by the controlled detonation of a bomb in 2021 – 76 years after the end of WWII – was not "occasioned by war", the approach to legal causation is however "more nuanced" and is subject to "specific rules and principles".

We examine the Court of Appeal's decision, as well as some of the specific rules and principles applied, in more detail below.

Background summary: Allianz Insurance plc v University of Exeter

Our earlier article summarises the background facts in full. In brief:

• the University of Exeter had submitted a claim on its insurance policy in respect of physical damage to halls of residence and business interruption, following the controlled detonation of a WWII bomb which had been dropped by German forces in 1942.
• the intended "Low Order Technique" (LOT) methodology of detonation, which attempts to limit the explosion, did not succeed and instead resulted in the full detonation of the bomb and the consequent damage.
• Allianz declined the university's claim on the basis that the loss and damage suffered fell within the scope of the War Exclusion clause in the policy, being loss and damage "occasioned by war".
• it was common ground between the parties that in order to determine whether the damage was "occasioned by war" the court would need to apply the proximate cause test.
• at first instance, the court had held that
  1. the dropping of the bomb was the "obvious proximate cause" of the damage;
  2. in the alternative, if this was wrong and the dropping of the bomb was not "the" proximate cause, it was satisfied that it was "a" proximate cause;
  3. by operation of the "concurrent causes" rule (described below in more detail), it was sufficient for the dropping of the bomb to be "a" proximate cause in order for the exclusion to apply.

The key issue on appeal: was the...