Hiscox Insurance Company has sued a Yonkers contractor for allegedly falsifying an insurance application.
Chicago-based Hiscox is asking U.S. District Court in White Plains to declare that a general liability policy that Bryce Contracting Inc. took out in 2019 be declared void retroactively for the past six years.
“The information Bryce provided in the application process was materially false and misleading,” the complaint states, and Hiscox would not have issued the insurance policy “had Bryce been truthful.”
When Bryce applied for insurance in 2019 it stated that its primary business was technology services, according to the complaint, and that except for handling computer systems it did not perform construction services.
But in 2023, the complaint states, Bryce was hired to do demolition, carpentry, drywall installation and painting for a Pottery Barn project at Vernon Hills shopping center in Eastchester.
Bryce laborer, Einsten Cabrera Parejas, 21, was allegedly injured at the job site in October 2023. A scaffold he was working on wobbled and he fell to the ground, according to a lawsuit Parejas filed against Vernon Hills, general contractor Axxys Construction Group, and Pottery Barn.
Parejas claimed he suffered injuries to his head, limbs, spine and nervous system.
This past January, Axxys and Pottery Barn submitted claims to Hiscox, under Bryce’s insurance policy, to pay for Parejas’ injuries.
Hiscox cancelled Bryce’s insurance as of April 23.
Now Hiscox wants the court to cancel Bryce’s insurance policy retroactively and to declare that it is not required to compensate Bryce, Axxys, Pottery Barn or Vernon Hills for any matters concerning Bryce.
The complaint does not say how much money Axxys and Pottery Barn are seeking from Hiscox. But according to Parejas’ lawsuit, his medical expenses totaled more than $50,000 and he had lost $47,000 in wages, as of October 2024.
Bryce was formed in 2017 by Cesar E. Vidal, according to a state business registration, and the company is still active. Efforts to find contact information for Bryce and Vidal, to ask for their side of the story, were unsuccessful.
