UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 10-1082

NGM INSURANCE COMPANY, f/k/a National Grange Mutual 

Insurance Company,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

NORMAN L. KURAS, JR., d/b/a Carolina’s Power Wash & 

Painting, f/k/a Carolina’s Painting & Pressure Washing; 

CATHY CROMER; LISA GLOVER,

Defendants - Appellees,

and

CAROLINA’S POWER WASH & PAINTING, LLC,

Defendant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Charleston. David C. Norton, Chief District 

Judge. (2:08-cv-03378-DCN)

Argued: December 9, 2010 Decided: January 11, 2011

Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and WILKINSON and MOTZ, Circuit 

Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ARGUED: Jonathan Joel Anderson, ANDERSON & REYNOLDS, LLC, 

Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellant. Richard Hunt McDuff, 
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SMITH MOORE LEATHERWOOD, LLP, Greenville, South Carolina, for 

Appellees. ON BRIEF: Eric M. Johnsen, ANDERSON & REYNOLDS, LLC, 

Charleston, South Carolina, for Appellant. Jason D. Maertens, 

SMITH MOORE LEATHERWOOD, LLP, Greenville, South Carolina, for 

Appellee Norman L. Kuras, Jr.; M. Brent McDonald, SMITH, BUNDY, 

BYBEE & BARNETT, PC, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, for Appellees 

Lisa Glover and Cathy Cromer.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

NGM Insurance Company (“NGM”) filed this diversity action

against Carolina’s Power Wash & Painting, LLC and its owner, 

Norman Kuras (together, the “Insured”), as well as two persons 

who had brought suit against the Insured, Cathy Cromer and Lisa 

Glover. NGM seeks a declaratory judgment that a “contractors 

policy” issued to the Insured does not cover tort claims that 

Cromer and Glover have filed in state court. The district 

granted summary judgment to the Insured, holding that the policy 

applies and NGM must indemnify the Insured for any recovery by 

Cromer and Glover. We affirm.

I.

For summary judgment purposes, the parties have stipulated 

to the following facts.

On March 13, 2003, the Insured, a specialty contractor, had 

renewed an existing contractors policy with NGM, effective until 

March 13, 2004. The policy covered the Insured for “those sums 

that the insured becomes legally obligated to pay” because of 

bodily injury. Pursuant to an exclusion popularly known as the 

“pollution exclusion,” coverage did not extend to bodily injury 

“arising out of the actual, alleged, or threatened discharge, 

dispersal, seepage, migration, release or escape of pollutants.” 

The policy defined pollutants as “any solid, liquid, gaseous or 
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thermal irritant or contaminant, including smoke, vapor, soot, 

fumes, acids, alkalis, chemicals and waste. Waste includes 

materials to be recycled, reconditioned, or reclaimed.” The 

exclusion applied if the Insured was “performing operations” and 

“in connection with such operations” the Insured brought 

“pollutants . . . on or to the premises, site or location.”

On April 30, 2003, the Insured entered into a contract with 

the United States Postal Service (the “USPS”) to paint the 

interior of the main post office in Johns Island, South 

Carolina. The Insured secured the contract only after showing 

proof of liability insurance to the USPS.

To perform the contract, the Insured brought paints, 

primers, and solvents intended for normal interior applications 

to the Johns Island post office. As employees of the USPS at 

the Johns Island post office, Cathy Cromer and Lisa Glover were 

present during the Insured’s operations. “In the course of 

preparation, application, and/or clean up,” the Insured 

allegedly “exposed” Cromer and Glover to “fumes, vapor, dust, 

and/or residue” of the paint products.

In March 2006, Cromer and Glover filed an action in South 

Carolina state court against the Insured seeking compensation 

for these injuries. They alleged in their complaint that

exposure to the paint products caused them chemically induced 
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asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, reactive airways 

dysfunction syndrome, and other personal injury.

II.

On October 3, 2008, NGM filed this diversity action seeking 

a declaratory judgment that the policy’s pollution exclusion

bars coverage for the claims filed in Cromer and Glover’s state 

court action. Properly applying South Carolina law, the 

district court granted summary judgment to the Insured. The 

court reasoned that, under these circumstances, the language of 

the pollution exclusion was subject to more than one reasonable 

interpretation and therefore ambiguous. Consistent with South 

Carolina law, the district court considered, as evidence of the 

exclusion’s ambiguity, the nationwide division of authority over 

whether the pollution exclusion applies only to traditional 

environmental damage. After finding the language of the 

exclusion ambiguous, the district court invoked the South 

Carolina rule requiring interpretation of an ambiguity in an 

insurance contract against an insurer and, accordingly, granted

judgment to the Insured.

NGM filed a timely appeal. It argues that the exclusion is 

unambiguous and therefore applies to bar coverage for the claims 

filed in state court against the Insured. We review a grant of 

summary judgment de novo, examining the facts in the light most 
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favorable to the nonmoving party. See Anderson v. Russell, 247 

F.3d 125, 129 (4th Cir. 2001).

III.

After having the benefit of oral argument and carefully 

reviewing the briefs, record, and controlling legal authorities, 

we conclude that the district court's analysis was correct. 

Accordingly, we affirm on the basis of the district court's well 

reasoned opinion. See NGM Ins. Co. v. Carolina’s Power Wash & 

Painting, LLC, No. 2:08-cv-3378-DCN (D.S.C. Jan. 12, 2010).

AFFIRMED