In Centennial Development v. Lawyer’s Title, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled that the title company could not be held liable for negligence in failing to discover and disclose the existence of an easement across the parcel it insured.  The easement was for utilities and for ingress and egress.  The insured buyer gave the land back to the seller and sued Lawyer’s Title.  The Court of Appeals noted that in 1992 the Arizona legislature had passed changes to the laws covering title insurers, barring claims against a title company regarding the issuance of a title commitment.  The statutes now distinguish between an abstract of title and a title commitment.  Abstracts of title have largely been replaced by title insurance policies.  The Court of Appeals explained that negligence in performing a title search and issuing a title commitment based on it does not give rise to liability, in and of itself.  What can give rise to liability is the issuance of a title insurance policy.  Lawyer’s Title did issue a title policy which did not exclude the offending easement from coverage under the policy and the Court of Appeals reversed the judgment in favor of Lawyer’s Title in regard to the claim on its policy.  So, there was no negligence claim available to the buyer, but there was a breach of contract claim based on the policy which covered the purchased property.