Insurer Dodges $180K Corpse Cleanup Costs

An insurer is not liable for the $180,000 it cost a landlord to clean up the remains of a corpse found collapsed over a tenant’s toilet, with fluids seeping into the apartment below, a federal judge ruled. When landlord William Creagh entered the second-floor apartment of one of his tenants, Arthur Doud, in August 2011, he allegedly noticed an "ungodly" odor. Creagh found Doud’s decomposing corpse collapsed over his toilet. Doud had been dead for as long as two weeks, and his bodily fluids had seeped into the floor and contaminated the first floor bathroom directly below. Biological material was also found in his kitchen and bedroom.