NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION

File Name: 23a0275n.06

Case No. 22-3992

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

ADMIRAL INSURANCE COMPANY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

FIRE-DEX, LLC,

Defendant-Appellee.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 

THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF 

OHIO 

OPINION

Before: COLE, READLER, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges. 

CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Fire-Dex is a manufacturer of firefighting 

materials. Today, the company finds itself fighting fires of another sort—claims in an array of 

lawsuits asserting that Fire-Dex’s products contain chemicals that purportedly caused cancer in 

firefighters and their spouses. Fire-Dex turned to one of its long-time liability insurers, Admiral, 

for defense or indemnity in these lawsuits. Admiral denied coverage and, in turn, sought a 

declaratory judgment that it had properly done so. The district court declined to exercise

jurisdiction over the suit, giving rise to this appeal. We now affirm.

I.

This insurance dispute is a small part of a developing national story. For many years, the 

group of chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (also known as “PFAS”) has been 

used in the manufacturing of firefighting products. In more recent days, PFAS has been linked to 
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certain kinds of cancer. Those discoveries resulted in numerous lawsuits against PFAS 

manufacturers as well as those companies whose finished products allegedly contained PFAS. 

Many of the cases have been consolidated in multidistrict litigation. See In re Aqueous FilmForming Foams Prod. Liab. Litig. (“PFAS MDL”), No. 2:18-mn-02873 (D.S.C.).

Fire-Dex manufactures clothing worn by firefighters. A host of lawsuits allege injuries—

primarily cancer—resulting from Fire-Dex clothing that contained PFAS. The plaintiffs in those 

cases are firefighters or their spouses who claim exposure to PFAS through the use of Fire-Dex’s 

products in “the usual and normal course of performing their firefighting duties.” Several of those 

cases have also been referred to the PFAS MDL for resolution.

As the claims against it mounted, Fire-Dex sought coverage from its commercial general 

liability insurers, including under general liability policies issued by Admiral. But Admiral denied 

coverage. As the insurer saw things, exclusions in the policy caused Fire-Dex’s lawsuits to fall 

beyond the scope of coverage provided by the policy. In reaching that conclusion, Admiral 

principally relied on the so-called “occupational disease” exclusion policy rider. That exclusion 

reads: “[T]here is no coverage afforded . . . for any bodily injury to any individual resulting from 

any occupational . . . disease arising out of any insured’s operations, completed operations or 

products.” (emphasis and quotation marks removed). Admiral deemed the firefighters’ and their 

spouses’ illnesses resulting from alleged exposure to PFAS to be an “occupational disease” 

captured by the exclusion. In addition to denying coverage, Admiral filed this declaratory 

judgment action. Admiral seeks a declaration under the Declaratory Judgment Act, see 28 U.S.C. 

§ 2201(a), that it has no duty to defend or indemnify Fire-Dex in the underlying lawsuits. 

The district court declined to exercise jurisdiction over Admiral’s complaint. Utilizing our 

test for the appropriateness of a declaratory judgment, the district court held that there were 
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important federalism concerns weighing against a federal court issuing a declaration in this setting. 

Admiral timely appealed, making the case ripe for our resolution.

II.

Congress, in the Declaratory Judgment Act, authorized federal courts to “declare the rights 

and other legal relations” of parties. Id. As is always true in federal litigation, the plaintiff in a 

declaratory judgment suit must satisfy the traditional elements of a federal action. That includes

demonstrating that a live case or controversy exists. MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., 549 

U.S. 118, 126–27 (2007). Even when a plaintiff has done so, the district court maintains discretion

whether to accept jurisdiction over the action. 28 U.S.C. § 2201(a); Wilton v. Seven Falls Co., 515 

U.S. 277, 282 (1995).

The discretionary aspect of jurisdiction under the Declaratory Judgment Act is at the heart

of this dispute. The district court declined to exercise jurisdiction because Admiral’s claim raises

novel questions of Ohio insurance law, questions a state court is better positioned to answer in the 

first instance. Admiral believes that this conclusion amounts to reversible error. 

In most respects, the legal framework for determining when a district court should exercise 

jurisdiction over a declaratory judgment suit is well settled. That framework, derived from our 

decision in Grand Trunk W. R.R. Co. v. Consol. Rail Corp., 746 F.2d 323, 326 (6th Cir. 1984), is 

colloquially known as the “Grand Trunk” factors. The first four factors ask whether a declaration 

would settle the controversy, serve a useful purpose in clarifying the legal relations in issue, be 

used merely for the purpose of “procedural fencing,” and/or improperly encroach upon state 

jurisdiction; the fifth asks whether there is a better alternative remedy. Id. Despite the formula’s 

long pedigree, we have “never indicated” with specificity “how the[] Grand Trunk factors should 

be balanced” by the district court. Cardinal Health, Inc. v. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, 
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29 F.4th 792, 801 (6th Cir. 2022) (quoting Scottsdale Ins. Co. v. Flowers, 513 F.3d 546, 563 (6th 

Cir. 2008)). As a result, “the relative weight of the underlying considerations of efficiency, 

fairness, and federalism will depend,” as they typically do, “on [the] facts of the case.” Id. (quoting 

W. World Ins. Co. v. Hoey, 773 F.3d 755, 759 (6th Cir. 2014)). 

More settled is our practice of reviewing the district court’s application of the Grand Trunk

factors for an abuse of discretion. United Specialty Ins. Co. v. Cole’s Place, Inc., 936 F.3d 386, 

395 (6th Cir. 2019); see also Wilton, 515 U.S. at 286 (recognizing that the district court has “unique 

and substantial discretion in deciding whether to declare the rights of litigants”). In undertaking 

that review, we customarily do not perform a microscopic examination of the district court’s 

decision, scrutinizing its conclusion factor by factor. Compare Cardinal Health, 29 F.4th at 798

n.2 (concluding there was no abuse of discretion for failure to elucidate all of the elements within 

the Grand Trunk test), with Byler v. Air Methods Corp., 823 F. App’x 356, 365 (6th Cir. 2020)

(reversing when a court completely “disregard[ed]the Grand Trunk factors”). It is enough that the 

district court has “taken a good look at the issue and engaged in a reasoned analysis of whether 

issuing a declaration would be useful and fair.” Cardinal Health, 29 F.4th at 797 (citation omitted). 

Starting from common ground, there is no dispute over the district court’s application of 

the first three Grand Trunk factors. As the district court explained, a declaration would both settle 

the controversy and be useful in clarifying the legal relations between the parties. Likewise, the 

court found no evidence of procedural fencing or other gamesmanship. 

Next is the fourth factor: state jurisdictional encroachment. And that is where the parties’ 

agreement ends. Turning there, Admiral’s suit would encroach upon state jurisdiction (in this case, 

Ohio’s) if “accepting [federal] jurisdiction would increase friction between federal and [Ohio]

courts.” Flowers, 513 F.3d at 559. Here, we answer one multi-factor test with another. We apply
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three sub-factors to assess the risk that hearing the case will lead to friction between state and 

federal courts. Those factors include whether: (1) the underlying factual issues are important to 

an informed resolution of the case; (2) a state trial court is in a better position to evaluate those 

issues than a federal court; and (3) there is a close nexus between the underlying issues and state 

law or public policy. Travelers Indem. Co. v. Bowling Green Prof’l Assocs., 495 F.3d 266, 271

(6th Cir. 2007). 

The district court concluded that all three sub-factors weighed against jurisdiction. Critical 

to the court’s assessment was that Ohio courts have yet to answer questions tied to insurance 

liability for PFAS manufacturing, and accordingly, that those matters are best resolved by an Ohio 

court in the first instance. See R. 21 PageID 599 (“[A]fter an exhaustive search, the Court was 

unable to locate a single case (and the parties did not identify any case) in which an Ohio state 

court . . . applied [this exclusion] to the facts presented in the instant case.”).

We agree. This dispute turns on a novel issue of Ohio insurance law: are illnesses arising 

from exposure to PFAS in a manufacturer’s finished products an “occupational disease” under 

Ohio law? No party cites an Ohio decision addressing the issue, nor are we aware of one. In the 

absence of guidance from Ohio courts for us to follow, Admiral’s “theories of liability under Ohio 

state law implicate concerns of comity.” Cardinal Health, 29 F.4th at 799. States, it bears 

reminding, are the masters of their own law, subject to certain federal constitutional and statutory 

restraints. See Montana v. Wyoming, 563 U.S. 368, 377 n.5 (2011) (quoting West v. Am. Tel. & 

Tel. Co., 311 U.S. 223, 236 (1940) (“The highest court of each State, of course, remains ‘the final 

arbiter of what is state law.’”). So when unanswered questions of state law raise their heads, state 

courts are best suited to answer them, a proposition that has long been embraced in a host of 

settings. See, e.g., R.R. Comm’n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496, 500–502 (1941)
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(instructing federal courts to avoid exercising jurisdiction where an interpretation by a state court

will abrogate the need for a constitutional decision in federal court); see also Younger v. Harris, 

401 U.S. 37, 45, 52–53 (1971) (cautioning federal courts against exercising jurisdiction in cases 

where they are asked to enjoin pending state proceedings). The more novel the issue, the less 

guidance federal courts will have in interpreting state law. See Hoey, 773 F.3d at 760 (“A district 

court would be wise to decline jurisdiction if a declaratory action involved novel, unsettled, or 

complex issues of state law. . . .”). And the lesser the guidance, the greater the likelihood that a 

federal court’s conclusion would be out of step with a state court’s resolution of the issue. 

Remember, the district court was asked to “declare” how Ohio law would interpret contractual 

language addressing liability to non-employees for PFAS exposure. Doing so without any relevant 

state-imposed guardrails would make its journey a riskier one. For these reasons, it was “not an 

abuse of discretion for [the] district court to hold” that these issues “first need to be decided by 

Ohio state courts.” Cardinal Health, 29 F.4th at 799. 

Especially so, we note, as this case involves a dispute over insurance law. By and large, 

insurance rules and regulations are reserved to the states for crafting. See, e.g., McCarranFerguson Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1012(b) (“No Act of Congress shall be construed to invalidate, impair, 

or supersede any law enacted by any State for the purpose of regulating the business of 

insurance[.]”); Bituminous Cas. Corp. v. J & L Lumber Co., 373 F.3d 807, 815 (6th Cir. 2004) 

(explaining that “state courts are best situated” to regulate insurance companies operating within 

their borders, including by interpreting insurance contracts) (citation omitted). It is thus no 

surprise that we consistently counsel district courts to decline jurisdiction when asked to decide

unresolved insurance coverage issues. See Bituminous, 373 F.3d at 816 (noting that “potential 

unresolved questions of state law concerning state regulated insurance contracts . . . weigh[]
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against exercising jurisdiction.”); see also Mass. Bay Ins. Co. v. Christian Funeral Dirs., Inc., 759 

F. App’x 431, 440 (6th Cir. 2018) (“In general, states are in a better position to resolve insurance 

issues governed by state law.”). All things considered, the district court did not abuse its discretion 

in determining it was best left for a state court to resolve in the first instance the novel state 

insurance law questions presented here. For many of the same reasons, the district court did not 

err in weighing the fifth factor against exercising jurisdiction. It was right to conclude that an Ohio 

declaratory judgment action was a better alternative remedy. 

Admiral has not convinced us otherwise. To begin, Admiral emphasizes that no pending 

state court litigation raises the same issues as those presented here. But ongoing litigation is not 

necessary for a federal court to decline jurisdiction asserted in a declaratory judgment suit. 

Instructive on that front is our recent decision in Cardinal Health. Cardinal, a leading 

pharmaceutical distributor, was sued in one of many cases that made up multidistrict litigation 

surrounding opioids. Cardinal Health, 29 F.4th at 795–97. Like Admiral, Cardinal’s insurer 

declined liability coverage and sought a declaratory judgment that its coverage interpretation was 

correct as a matter of law. Id. On appeal, we affirmed the district court’s decision to decline

jurisdiction over the declaratory action. Id. In so doing, we rejected the notion that state-federal 

friction could only arise where there existed a parallel state proceeding. Rather, we explained, 

comity is “not so narrow.” Id. at 799. 

Admiral likewise takes issue with our understanding of Ohio law. Where we see untouched 

legal terrain, Admiral sees a well-worn path. An Ohio court, the insurer says, would predictably 

apply Ohio precedent interpreting the “occupational disease” exclusion to answer today’s 

insurance law questions. To the extent that body of law is well settled, however, it is only in the 

context of worker’s compensation claims—where workers allege they were exposed to a disease 
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on the job. See, e.g., State ex rel. Ohio Bell Tel. Co. v. Krise, 327 N.E.2d 756, 760–61 (Ohio 

1975); City of Bedford Hts. v. France, 616 N.E.2d 177, 179 (Ohio 1993). That is not the nature of 

the various pending lawsuits against Fire-Dex. The company, remember, is being sued by end 

users of Fire-Dex products, not its own employees, for workplace exposure. And like the district 

court, we are aware of no Ohio precedent interpreting the term “occupational disease” in that 

scenario. Nor, it seems, is Admiral. See Admiral Br. at 25 (“[T]his particular occupational disease 

exclusion has not been applied in Ohio. . . .”).

* * *

We affirm the judgment of the district court.