Pollution Exclusion Enforced by Madison County, Illinois Court
On October 5, 2011, Troutman Sanders obtained partial summary judgment on behalf of Continental Insurance Company in a major environmental pollution coverage case pending in the Illinois Circuit Court for the Third Judicial Circuit, Madison County, Illinois. The court held that the unambiguous provisions of a pollution exclusion precluded coverage for the costs associated with Apex Oil Company’s clean-up of significant petroleum and oil contamination in Hartford, Illinois.
Harbor Insurance Company issued four excess policies to Apex between 1975 and 1979. Apex alleged that Continental, as the successor to Harbor, owed coverage for the costs Apex incurred in its clean-up efforts. Three of the Harbor Policies “followed form” to an underlying Northbrook Insurance Company policy that contained a pollution exclusion providing that coverage would not apply to “[t]he cost of removing, nullifying or cleaning up seeping, polluting or contaminating substances.”
Judge Clarence W. Harrison II agreed with Continental and held that the language of the exclusion unambiguously barred the coverage sought by Apex under those three Harbor policies. The court stated that the exclusion sent an “unmistakable message to the reasonable reader that the exclusion deals with environmental-type harms.” The court further reasoned that “[w]ithout an involved interpretation of the risk, potential future loss, or scope of coverage, the reader can determine that certain costs will not be indemnified without regard to their source.”
Continental’s lead attorney on the motion is Eileen King Bower, a partner in Troutman Sanders’ Chicago office. Continental is also represented by several other attorneys from the Chicago office of Troutman Sanders, including Rebecca Ross, Christopher White, Seth Erickson and Matthew Morrissey.