Court Opinion

ID: 9584056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:44:14.191988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:05:52.817723
License: Public Domain

FINE, J.
(dissenting). The majority holds that the leaching of lead from lead-based paint into the air, whether in the form of chips, dust, or flakes, is not the "discharge, dispersal, release or escape of [a] pollutant[ ]" within the meaning of an insurance-policy exclusion that defines "pollutant" as, among other things, "any solid... irritant or contaminant, including . . . chemicals."1 The majority bases this conclusion on the supreme court's determination that carbon dioxide, which is a normal component of air, would not reasonably be thought of as "in the same class" as other "pollutants" described by the policy, namely " 'smoke, vapor, soot, fumes, acids, alkalis, chemicals and waste,'" even if that carbon dioxide was present in that air in sufficiently high concentrations to cause illness, Donaldson v. Urban Land Interests, Inc., 211 Wis. 2d 224, 234, 564 N.W.2d 728, 733 (1997). Majority op. at 172-173, citing and relying on Donaldson. The crux of Donaldson, however, was "the inadequate ventilation of exhaled carbon dioxide" — that is, the failure of a system designed to remove carbon dioxide before it reached dangerous levels of concentration. Id., 211 Wis. 2d at 226-227, 564 N.W.2d at 730. Unlike lead, carbon dioxide is a substance produced by most living things on this planet — people, animals, and, at night, plants.
*176According to the majority, Donaldson "extensively relied on Pipefitters Welfare Educ. Fund v. Westchester Fire Ins. Co.," 976 F.2d 1037 (7th Cir. 1992) (pollution-exclusion clause in insurance contract applied to spillage of eighty gallons of oil laced with polychlorinated biphenyls), and its dictum discussion of " 'everyday activities gone slightly, but not surprisingly, awry.'" Majority op. at 172-173 (quoting Pipefitters, 976 F.2d at 1044). In support of its supposition that "[tjhere is nothing that unusual about paint peeling off of a wall, asbestos particles escaping during the installation or removal of insulation, or paint drifting off the mark during a spraypainting job," Pipefitters, 976 F.2d at 1044, Pipefitters cites, with respect to the "paint peeling off the wall" comment specifically relied on by the majority, see majority op. at 172, Atlantic Mut. Ins. Co. v. McFadden, then a Massachusetts trial court decision that has since been affirmed, Atlantic Mut. Ins. Co. v. McFadden, 595 N.E.2d 762 (Mass. 1992). See Pipefitters, 976 F.2d at 1043-1044. Significantly, McFadden, which was also cited by Donaldson, 211 Wis. 2d at 234, 564 N.W.2d at 733, limited the pollution-exclusion clause at issue both there and here to "industrial pollution." McFadden, 595 N.E.2d at 764 (emphasis added). That, however, is not the law in Wisconsin; pollution-exclusion clauses in Wisconsin are not so limited. See Donaldson v. Urban Land Interests, Inc., 205 Wis. 2d 404, 413-414, 556 N.W.2d 100, 103-104 (Ct. App. 1996), rev'd on other grounds, 211 Wis. 2d 224, 564 N.W.2d 728 (1997).
McFadden did not decide or even discuss the issue presented by either Donaldson or this appeal. Unless the supreme court is prepared to follow McFadden's lead and specifically limit pollution-exclusion clauses to industrial-pollution cases, and thus overturn our *177decision in Donaldson on that point as well, reliance on McFadden is without merit. Indeed, Pipefitters recognized that there is a split among jurisdictions in connection with the soundness of its dictum discussion, upon which the majority here relies, and deliberately declined to resolve that dispute for the Seventh Circuit. See Pipefitters, 976 F.2d at 1044.
In my view, Donaldson, Pipefitters, and McFadden are slim reeds upon which to hang a repudiation of our distinction between lead in paint that remains intact on the surfaces to which the paint was applied, and lead that escapes from those surfaces in the form of dust, chips or flakes, that we drew in Vance v. Sukup, 207 Wis. 2d 576, 582-583, 558 N.W.2d 683, 686 (Ct. App. 1996), vacated and remanded to court of appeals without opinion, 211 Wis. 2d 529, 568 N.W.2d 297 (1997). Certainly, neither the rationale nor the result in Donaldson, Pipefitters, or McFadden compels the decision the majority reaches. Indeed, the fact that "[t]here is nothing unusual about paint peeling off of a wall, asbestos particles escaping during the installation or removal of insulation, or paint drifting off the mark during a spraypainting job," Pipefitters, 976 F.2d at 1044, is the very reason why a reasonable insured reading the pollution-exclusion clause would not expect to have insurance coverage. Insurance (with the exception of "whole" life insurance, which has its own actuarial shields for the insurer) provides security against unexpected but possible events — not the everyday hazards of life that are likely to occur sooner or later. Indeed, the analysis here would be no different if the injuries were caused by fuel oil that leaked from a storage tank in the basement.
Unlike Donaldson, this case does not involve the failure of a mechanism to either regulate or flush a *178byproduct of life before that substance reaches dangerous levels. Unlike Donaldson, this case involves lead chips, lead flakes, and lead dust that "contaminated" (any other word would be a mere synonym) Kevin Peace's environment because it was "discharge[d]" or "dispers[ed]" or "release[d]" (any other words would be mere synonyms) from a place where the lead, if left there, was harmless. In essence, in both Pipefitters (oil laced with polychlorinated biphenyls) and here (lead) the "contaminant" was perfectly safe until it was released into an environment different than the environment for which it was intended — a transformer in Pipefitters, 976 F.2d at 1038-1039, and painted surfaces here. See United States Fire Ins. Co. v. Ace Baking Co., 164 Wis. 2d 499, 505, 476 N.W.2d 280, 283 (Ct. App. 1991) ("[I]t is a rare substance indeed that is always a pollutant; the most noxious of materials have their appropriate and non-polluting uses.") (emphasis in original). The only real difference between Pipefit-ters and this case is the distinction between industrial and non-industrial pollution, a distinction that the majority does not even discuss.
I would affirm.

 Lead, of course, is an elemental "chemical."