We shall take up the alternative ground for affirmance first. Stone believes that the same word should be read narrowly when it appears in an exclusion from coverage, and broadly when it appears in an exception to an exclusion, even if the context is the same. Outboard Marine Corp. v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Stone's suggestion would make insurance contracts even more complex, esoteric, and inscrutable than they are already. It seems to exclude the explosion of an atomic bomb, since a nuclear reaction is not a form of combustion or a chemical reaction, at least in the usual senses of these words.
None involves stretching the ordinary meaning.
And likewise a blast that blows 28 tons of steel and concrete more than 200 feet away is the ordinary person's idea of an explosion, whatever the precise cause of the explosion. And Stone has cited no case that impresses an artificial definition on the term. Pre-Cast Concrete Products, Inc. v. Home Ins. Stone's argument is at root that if a term is not defined in an insurance contract, the insured can impress any definition on it that will establish coverage. It is closest to a steam boiler, because it employs steam under pressure.