Opinion ID: 1120914
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: what is handled for purposes of the sistership exclusion

Text: [4, 5] Centennial argues, alternatively, that an insured's product includes goods of others that the insured handled and that because Olympic handled the canned salmon, the salmon is its product. The courts that have considered this argument expressly rejected it. The courts in Gulf Mississippi Marine Corp. v. George Engine Co., 697 F.2d 668, 672 (5th Cir.1983) and in Todd Shipyards Corp. v. Turbine Serv., Inc., 674 F.2d 401, 419-20 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1036 (1982) interpreted the term handled as used in a definition of insured products that is identical to the definition contained in Olympic's policy. The courts reasoned that: It is true that the verb handle means to touch; to feel with the hand; to hold, take up, move, or otherwise affect, with the hand.    Webster also defines handle as to buy and sell; to deal, or trade in. That the intention of the insurer was to restrict the word handled to this meaning is apparent from the words manufactured, sold    or distributed, with which it is linked. 674 F.2d at 419-20. Both courts found that the verb handled meant to deal or trade in, rather than to touch. 674 F.2d at 420; see also Paxton-Mitchell Co. v. Royal Indem. Co., 279 Or. 607, 616-17, 569 P.2d 581, 587 (1977) (narrow definition of handled as to deal or trade in is more logical and between two business parties that definition of the word would be intended); Smedley Co. v. Employers Mut. Liab. Ins. Co., 143 Conn. 510, 123 A.2d 755, 758 (1956) (insured who stored customer's product and, at customer's direction, placed the product on its shipping platform for shipper to pick up, did not handle the product). The broad definition of the verb handled that Centennial advocates renders coverage under a comprehensive general liability policy illusory: it is difficult to conceive of a service which does not involve the handling of some object, so that, arguably, even the purest of service-type operations from which liability might arise could be categorized as excluded.... 260 Pa. Super. at 187-88. We reject the all-inclusive definition of the term handle that Centennial advocates and approve a narrower definition of the word as to buy, sell, distribute, or trade in. The labeling, casing, and shipping process that Olympic undertook at the direction of the salmon packers, using materials that the salmon packers provided, did not constitute handling, for purposes of the sistership exclusion, or make the packers' canned salmon Olympic's product or its work.