Opinion ID: 709555
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hardage Steering Committee

Text: 19 On August 25, 1992, six members of HSC filed a federal diversity action for a declaratory judgment against five insurance companies that had issued CGL policies to Double Eagle during the years Double Eagle disposed of waste at the Hardage Site. For clarity, we refer to the six members of HSC who brought this declaratory judgment action as HSC. As a judgment creditor of Double Eagle, HSC sought a declaratory judgment that the CGL policies issued by the insurance companies to Double Eagle provided coverage to satisfy the HSC judgment. The insurance companies moved for summary judgment on the grounds the pollution exclusion clause of the CGL policies precluded coverage for damages arising from Double Eagle's disposal of waste at the Hardage Site. Further, the insurance companies argued that Double Eagle's waste disposal did not fall within the sudden and accidental exception to the pollution exclusion clause because the discharges of waste were intentional, expected, and routine over a number of years. 20 The district court determined that HSC's claims were indistinguishable from those presented in Oklahoma Publishing Co. v. Kansas City Fire and Marine Ins. Co., 805 F.Supp. 905 (W.D.Okla.1992), a case decided by the same district court and involving a company that, like Double Eagle, disposed of waste at the Hardage Site and sought coverage from insurance companies that had sold it CGL policies. In Oklahoma Publishing Co., the district court ruled that under Oklahoma law, the phrase 'sudden and accidental' requires a discharge that is both abrupt and unexpected or unintended by the insured. Id. at 910. Because the discharges at the Hardage Site occurred over a number of years pursuant to an intended disposal plan at the Hardage Site, the district court in Oklahoma Publishing Co. concluded they cannot as a matter of law be deemed to be 'sudden and accidental.'  Id. at 910. Consequently, in Oklahoma Publishing Co. the district court ruled that the insurance companies did not have to provide coverage for the environmental clean-up costs at the Hardage Site because the contamination at issue was excluded from coverage under the pollution exclusion clause of the CGL policies. Id. 21 Applying its decision in Oklahoma Publishing Co., the district court concluded that Double Eagle's long-term disposal of waste did not fall within the sudden and accidental exception to the pollution exclusion clause. Consequently, the district court concluded that the unambiguous language of the pollution exclusion clause precluded from coverage Double Eagle's liability for the contamination at the Hardage Site. The district court therefore entered summary judgment in favor of the insurance companies. HSC appealed.
22 On the same day HSC filed the declaratory judgment action against Double Eagle's insurers, HSC also initiated a garnishment proceeding in the CERCLA action to recover on the HSC judgment from Double Eagle's insurers. 6 Proceeding as garnishors pursuant to Okla.Stat. tit. 12, Sec. 1171, HSC alleged that the CGL policies obligated the garnishee insurance companies to provide coverage to Double Eagle in the amount of the $16,172,408.00 HSC judgment that represented Double Eagle's share of the costs to implement the remedy at the Hardage Site. As judgment creditor of Double Eagle, HSC contended it was entitled to garnish the insurance coverage due Double Eagle in the possession of the garnishee insurance companies. 23 The garnishee insurance companies moved for summary judgment. The district court cited Oklahoma Publishing Co., and ruled that the pollution exclusion clauses contained in the garnishees' insurance policies are not ambiguous and ... preclude coverage in this proceeding for any damage arising from the purposeful and deliberate discharge of hazardous substances by Double Eagle pursuant to its disposal plan at the Hardage Site. Consequently, the district court entered summary judgment in favor of the garnishee insurance companies. HSC appealed.