A woman whose apartment was damaged when her neighbor’s corpse exploded in the unit above hers has been ordered to pay for her own repairs.
Judy Rodrigo lost her nearly six-year legal battle with her insurer on Wednesday, with the Palm Beach County court in Florida ruling that her insurance policy didn’t cover damage caused by bodily explosions.
Rodrigo claimed in her suit that Keystone Condominium Association staff failed to discover the elderly woman’s body for two weeks in 2008, causing it to burst.
By the time maintenance workers checked on the upstairs neighbor, who lived alone, her remains were being eaten by her pet dog.
“I don’t know how the dog stayed alive. It must have been at her for some time,” shocked neighbor Nicholas Colangelo told Court House News in 2009.
Rodrigo claimed the condo association failed to replace common elements of the building that were soaked by the bodily liquids, and she was forced to pay for renovations herself.
Even though her apartment was gutted, Rodrigo said the smell never left.
When she asked State Farm, the insurer, to pay out the personal property damage coverage, they refused.
They claimed a decomposing body was not a “peril” that they covered. The appeals court agreed.
“The plain meaning of the term ‘explosion’ does not include a decomposing body’s cells explosively expanding, causing leakage of bodily fluids,” they court stated.
“In short, although novel in her attempt to do so, the insured could not establish that the decomposing body was tantamount to an explosion.”
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.