Opinion ID: 2617139
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Reading the Pollution Exclusion Out of the Policy

Text: As noted above, in some of the insurance policies furnished to Kitsap County there is an exclusion from the bodily injury and property damage coverage for pollution-related damages. The insurers assert that if the personal injury coverage provisions are construed to cover the trespass and nuisance claims that were made against the County, then the pollution exclusion applicable to the property damage and bodily injury coverage will be read out f the policy. They suggest that if this is countenanced an insured could avoid limitations to coverage through the simple artifice of recharacterizing pollution liability claims as actions for `personal injury,' thereby trumping other limitations to coverage. Br. of Certain Insurers at 23. They cite several cases from other jurisdictions, most notably Titan Corp. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 22 Cal.App. 4th 457, 27 Cal.Rptr.2d 476 (1994), which stands for this proposition. The County, on the other hand, asserts that a flaw in the insurers argument is that it proceeds on the incorrect assumption that every claim that arises from the release of pollutants will be or can be characterized as a trespass, nuisance, or interference with use and enjoyment of personal property. As the County observes, the pollution exclusion applicable to the property damage and bodily injury provisions would not be read out of the policy because it would have viability in cases where the claims against the insured could not be characterized as trespass, nuisance, or other claims for personal injury. Despite the efforts of the insurers to have us determine this question, we decline to do so. As we indicated above, we are only to answer the precise question addressed to us by the federal court. That court has not asked us to answer this question and we are loathe to do so, in any case, without a more complete record than we have been furnished. We observe only that all of the insurers whose policies are under scrutiny here chose to provide coverage for sums the insured became legally obligated to pay as damages because of personal injury. It was also the decision of at least some of those insurers to provide a pollution exclusion that by its express terms applies only to claims for bodily injury and property damage, and not to claims for personal injury. The fact that some insurers provided a pollution exclusion applicable to personal injury coverage furnishes a strong argument for the point that this issue could easily have been removed from the case by all of the insurers had they chosen to do so. Furthermore, the insurers' argument that the exclusions for pollution-related claims will be read out of the policy if the trespass, nuisance, and interference with use and enjoyment of property claims fall within the personal injury coverage of the policies, could be viewed as an undertaking by the insurers to read the personal injury provision out of the policies. Such a reading of the policy, arguably, is unfair and unreasonable. On the other hand, as we have already noted, some courts have taken the position that in the presence of a pollution exclusion clause, personal injury coverage is not available for damages caused by pollutants even if the complainant's allegations fall within personal injury coverage. The relative merits of those two positions will have to be decided in federal court.