Privilege Underwriters
Reciprocal Exchange v. Mankoff
Supreme Court of Texas, No.
24-0132 (February 13, 2026)
Opinion
by Justice Lehrmann (linked here)
“Asking abstractly whether a tornado is a windstorm seems
like it may lead us into an unsolvable conundrum like the passionately debated
controversy of whether a hotdog is a sandwich.” – Court of Appeals Justice
Emily Miskel
The seemingly simple question whether a tornado is a
windstorm drove years of litigation in this property-insurance case. The
question reached the Supreme Court of Texas, which held that yes, a tornado is
indeed a windstorm.
Homeowners Jeff and Staci Mankoff sued their insurer,
Privilege Underwriters Reciprocal Exchange (PURE), seeking additional insurance
proceeds after a 2019 tornado damaged their home. PURE paid the claim but
applied an $87,156 “Windstorm or Hail Deductible,” maintaining that tornado
damage fell within the policy’s undefined term “windstorm.” The Mankoffs
disagreed, but the trial court sided with PURE on summary judgment.
A divided Dallas Court of Appeals reversed. The majority
concluded that “windstorm” was ambiguous because the term was undefined and
susceptible to more than one reasonable meaning. The court pointed to
meteorological distinctions, an encyclopedia’s separate classification, and
several Insurance Code provisions listing “tornado” and “windstorm” as separate
perils. Applying the rule that ambiguous exclusionary provisions must be
construed in favor of the insured, the court rendered judgment for the Mankoffs.
Justice Miskel dissented, arguing that dictionary definitions consistently
describe both windstorms and tornadoes as storms marked by violent winds.
The Texas Supreme Court agreed with Justice Miskel. The Supreme
Court examined dictionary definitions, statutory usage, and case law, finding a
“common thread”: a windstorm is a storm with violent, strong winds. Tornadoes,
defined by their violent rotating winds, fall squarely within that definition.
The Court noted that some dictionaries even explicitly define a tornado as a
type of windstorm.
The Court rejected the Mankoffs’ argument that statutory
provisions listing tornadoes and windstorms separately indicated legislative
intent to treat them as mutually exclusive categories. Instead, the Court
explained, the Legislature may list narrower terms alongside broader ones for
emphasis without excluding the former from the latter. No Texas court had
previously held that a tornado is not a windstorm, and the Supreme Court
declined to create such a distinction. The Court reversed the appeals court’s judgment
and reinstated the judgment of the trial court, holding the common, ordinary
meaning of “windstorm” in an insurance policy unambiguously includes a tornado.
The decision follows the principle that undefined words are
generally given their ordinary meaning. Ask a person on the street or a jury if
a tornado is a windstorm, and they are likely to answer yes. But the jury is
still out on whether a hot dog is a sandwich.
