The Indiana Court of Appeals’ November opinion in the recent State Automobile Mutual Insurance Co. v Flexdar, Inc. (Ind. App. 2010) comes as good news to business owners like drycleaners who currently or have historically used tetrachlorethene (perc) or petroleum solvents that may have been released into the environment. The Appellate Court’s decision re-examined the landmark American States Insurance Co. v. Kiger (662 N.E.2d 945, Ind. 1996) as well as its progeny and found for Flexdar, Inc., the insured. (Kiger established that the absolute pollution exclusion found in many general commercial liability (GCL) policies is ambiguous and, as a result, ineffective in insulating insurers from their duties to defend and/or indemnify their insureds for claims made by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management that the insureds investigate and clean up releases of perc or other substances into soil and groundwater.) Continue reading “Flexdar Court Sides With Insureds: Reinforces Kiger; Broadens “Ambiguous” Interpretation of Absolute Pollution Exclusion Language”
Author: Justin Gifford
Westport Insurance Corporation v. Appleton Papers, Inc Westport Insurance Corporation v. Appleton Papers, Inc. [i]
Decision Adopts Vertical Exhaustion Theory, Clarifies Plastics Engineering
Early this month, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals District 1 affirmed a trial court’s ruling that vertical exhaustion was the appropriate theory to apply in progressive injury cases and elaborated upon the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 2009 holding in Plastics Engineering Co. V. Liberty Mutual Insurance Co.[ii] that Wisconsin is an “all sums” allocation state. Continue reading “Westport Insurance Corporation v. Appleton Papers, Inc Westport Insurance Corporation v. Appleton Papers, Inc. [i]”