Liberty Mutual Has No Duty to Defend I-35W Pileup Lawsuits, Appeals Court Rules

The dispute over the duty to defend

The Fifth Circuit’s ruling narrows Liberty Mutual’s defense obligation in litigation over the 2021 I-35W pileup: the underlying suits blamed roadway maintenance and operation, not the builders’ construction work. The court affirmed summary judgment for the insurer. The distinction matters because the dispute centered on what the plaintiffs alleged caused their injuries, rather than simply whether the builders had worked on the stretch of highway where the crash occurred.

In Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co v North Tarrant Infrastructure, Ferrovial Construction U.S. Corp., Webber, the policy covered bodily injury arising from construction work performed between 2013 and 2018. Liberty Mutual initially defended the companies while reserving its right to dispute coverage, then sued several years into the litigation to establish that it had no coverage obligation. That sequence put two questions alongside each other: whether the insurer had to provide a defense while the claims were pending, and whether the allegations ultimately connected the injuries to work covered by the policy.

A defense dispute can turn on the wording of the policy and the allegations in the complaint. The insurer’s initial decision to defend under a reservation of rights meant it was providing a defense while preserving its ability to contest coverage. That arrangement didn’t resolve the dispute; it allowed the underlying cases and the coverage question to proceed on separate tracks. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling addressed the latter question presented in Liberty Mutual’s suit.

What the underlying complaints alleged

The builders had constructed the stretch of I-35 West in Fort Worth where a winter storm triggered a 130-car pileup on Feb. 11, 2021. The crash killed six people and injured about 65. The judge described the policy as “clunky and poorly drafted,” but found the complaints did not allege that construction activity caused the injuries. Instead, plaintiffs alleged failures to prepare for winter weather and monitor the roadway.

That distinction is central to the coverage analysis described in the source. The builders’ role in constructing the road established a connection to the site, but the complaints focused on what happened later: how the roadway was prepared for the storm and monitored during it. The ruling therefore turned on the relationship between the alleged harm and the insured work, not on the broader fact that the companies had built the stretch of highway.

This is more significant than it looks. In a large accident, a defendant’s connection to the location can be easy to confuse with responsibility for the particular conduct alleged. Here, the complaints’ focus on maintenance and operations gave the court a basis to distinguish those allegations from construction work performed years earlier. The policy’s drafting problems made the interpretation less tidy, but they didn’t change the court’s reading of the claims.

And this is the part most people overlook: the allegations that matter to an insurance dispute may be narrower than the full story of a catastrophic event. A crash can raise questions about design, construction, maintenance, operations, weather preparation and driver conduct. The coverage ruling described here dealt with the claims against the builders and the connection those claims made to insured work; it didn’t resolve every question about how the pileup occurred.

The underlying cases continue on their own facts

The pileup generated dozens of suits against the builders, the tollway operator, and trucking companies and drivers. In December, a Dallas County jury awarded $44.1 million against a trucking company, its driver, and the tollway operator; other cases have settled. The decision turns on how the claims connect alleged harm to insured work, leaving the underlying litigation to proceed on its separate facts.

The verdict and settlements show that the accident has produced distinct outcomes across a broad set of defendants and claims. They don’t, by themselves, establish the builders’ liability or the insurer’s obligation under this policy. Each underlying case can involve its own allegations and evidence, while the coverage ruling addresses the policy question before the Fifth Circuit. Keeping those questions separate is essential to understanding what the decision did—and what it didn’t decide.

If you’re working in this space, the practical point is to read the alleged cause of injury closely, rather than assume that a defendant’s past work at a site brings every later claim within a policy. Similar coverage disputes often depend on how the complaint links the injury to the work described in the insurance contract. The ruling here illustrates that boundary, even though the judge’s description of the policy suggests the language itself was far from clear.

Implications for insurers and contractors

For insurers, the decision reinforces the importance of matching the allegations to the policy’s stated scope of work. For contractors, it shows why a defense provided under a reservation of rights can leave a substantial coverage question unresolved while the underlying suits continue. Neither point settles how another policy or complaint would be read; the result depends on the wording and allegations in that dispute.

There’s a limit to what can be drawn from this ruling. The available account identifies the policy period, the relevant allegations and the court’s conclusion, but it doesn’t provide the full policy language or the complete record of the underlying suits. A broad rule about all construction-related claims would go beyond those facts. The sounder reading is narrower: on the claims described, the court found no alleged causal link between the injuries and the construction activity covered by the policy.

That said, the decision offers a clear reminder about how these disputes are framed. A policy may cover injury arising from specified work, while a complaint may attribute the injury to later maintenance or operational failures. The gap between those descriptions can determine whether an insurer must defend its policyholder. Here, the Fifth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Liberty Mutual, while the underlying litigation remained a separate matter.