Opinion ID: 1375077
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sudden

Text: A number of courts have addressed the issue of whether the pollution exclusion clause is ambiguous. Their holdings differ as to whether the term sudden is susceptible to more than one meaning. State high courts addressing the issue are evenly split. Seven have construed sudden to mean unexpected, unintended, or unforeseen. [1] That was the conclusion the trial court reached in this matter. Seven state high courts, however, have concluded that sudden has a temporal element that connotes abruptness or immediacy. [2] A number of intermediate appellate courts have also reached that conclusion. [3] Most federal appellate courts confronted with the issue have held that sudden connotes temporal abruptness. [4] That includes the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals which reached that same conclusion in examining a pollution exclusion clause. See Hartford Accident & Indem. Co. v. United States Fidelity & Guar., 962 F.2d 1484, 1489 (10th Cir.1992). That was also the conclusion reached in five federal district court decisions from the Western District of Oklahoma which construed pollution exclusion clauses in policies covering the same Hardage waste disposal site involved here. [5] Independent of the differing conclusions of courts, the Oklahoma Statutes provide specific rules of contract interpretation. First, [t]he whole of a contract is to be taken together, so as to give effect to every part, if reasonably practical, each clause helping to interpret the others. Okla. Stat. tit. 15, § 157 (1991). Second: The words of a contract are to be understood in their ordinary and popular sense, rather than according to their strict legal meaning, unless used by the parties in a technical sense, or unless a special meaning is given to them by usage, in which case the latter must be followed. Id. at § 160. Thus, the term sudden must be viewed in the context of the contract and must be given its plain ordinary meaning. [N]either forced nor strained construction will be indulged, nor will any provision be taken out of context and narrowly focused upon to create and then construe an ambiguity so as to import a favorable consideration to either party than that expressed in the contract. Dodson 812 P.2d at 376. The ordinary and popular meaning of sudden necessarily includes an element of time. Decisions finding ambiguity have focused on technical distinctions crafted by lawyers rather than the ordinary understanding of the word. A finding of ambiguity requires that the term sudden be lifted from its context in the policy and scrutinized so closely that any plain meaning is no longer discernable. An appellate court should not strain to create an ambiguity where, in common sense, there is none. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Laudick, 18 Kan. App.2d 782, 859 P.2d 410, 412 (1993) (citing Bell v. Patrons Mut. Ins. Ass'n, 15 Kan. App.2d 791, 816 P.2d 407, 409 (1991). Clearly, the ordinary meaning of sudden cannot describe the gradual routine disposal of industrial waste that occurred over a number of years. Further, the trial court defined sudden to mean unexpected or unintended. But that definition also fits the term accidental. See United States Fidelity & Guar. Co. v. Briscoe, 205 Okla. 618, 239 P.2d 754, 757 (1951) (accident is an unexpected event). The trial court's construction of sudden would add nothing to the term accidental. It would make the term sudden mere surplusage. In order to give effect to each part of the contract, sudden and accidental must be read as two separate conditions for coverage under the policy.