Appeals Court holds pollution exclusion in auto policy of oil delivery service applies to overfilled oil tank

United Energy Oil Company, an oil delivery service, delivered oil from a truck to an oil tank in  a building owned by National Equity Properties.  It overfilled the tank and caused oil to seep into the ground. 


The truck was covered by a business auto insurance policy issued by Hanover Insurance.  Hanover determined that damages over $5000 came within the policy's pollution exclusion. 


A declaratory judgment action over the meaning of the pollution exclusion followed.  It was undisputed in that action that heating oil is a pollutant within the meaning of the pollution exclusion.


The first policy clause at issue in Izdebski v. Hanover Ins. Group, Inc., 86 Mass App. Ct. 1102, 2014 WL 2973681 (unpublished) was one that made the pollution exclusion applicable to property damage arising out of the actual discharge, release, or escape of pollutants:

a.  That are, or that are contained in any property that is:

(1)  Being transported or towed by, handled, or handled for movement into, onto or from, the covered 'auto.'

The Massachusetts Appeals Court held that the clause excluded coverage because the spill happened as the polluting oil was being delivered by the pump from the tank to its intended destination.    The plaintiffs argued that the oil had reached its final destination before it seeped into the ground, or that the oil that seeped into the ground was already in the tank before United began to fill it.  The court held that those interpretations ignored the meaning of "arising out of" in the exclusion. 


The second policy clause at issue was an exception.  The exclusion was for  damage arising out of the actual discharge, release, or escape of pollutants once they have been finally delivered. The exception applied to accidents with respect to pollutants not in a covered auto if

(1)  The pollutants or any property in which the pollutants are contained are upset, overturned or damaged as a result of the maintenance or use of a covered auto; and

(2)  The discharge, dispersal, seepage, migration, release or escape of the pollutants is caused directly by such upset, overturn or damage.

The phrase "upset, overturned or damages" was not defined.  The court held that a fair reading of the exception is that it applies to an accidental oil spill only  if United's truck is upset, overturned or damaged.  That doesn't make a lot of sense to me, as the exception plainly says that it is the pollutants "or any property in which they are contained" that must be upset, overturned, or damaged.  If it was only the covered auto that could be upset, overturned or damaged, the policy would have said so.  On the other hand, it does not seem that an overflow or seepage of oil comes within the definition either. 

Why reserves matter

A reserve is the amount of funds that an insurance company sets aside as the probable payout on an unresolved claim.  Over at the AMAXX Workers Comp Resource Center, Michael Stack has posted an interesting article on the risks to an insurer from failing to set accurate reserves. 

US District Court holds uninsured motorist coverage proceeds go to relatives of decedent insured, not estate

Michael Furlong was driving a pick-up truck southbound onto the Sagamore Bridge.  He swerved across the center line to avoid hitting  a vehicle that was merging.  He crashed into a minivan driven by Amnon Bogomolski.  Both men died as a result of the accident. 


Furlong's auto policy included $100,000 in uninsured motorist coverage.  Commerce had tendered the limits of the policy to settle Furlong's wrongful death claim against the unknown driver of the vehicle that was merging. 


Bogomolski's estate filed a wrongful death suit against Furlong's estate, and moved for what it called an attachment or to reach and apply the proceeds of the uninsured motorist insurance policy.  (The court noted that a motion for attachment or to reach an apply was technically premature until there was a judgment.  It treated the action one for preliminary injunction to restrain Commerce or the administrator of Furlong's estate from disposing of the property pending the outcome of the action.) 


The issue before the United States District Court in Bogomolsky v. Furlong, 2014 WL 29452927 (D. Mass. 2014) was whether the proceeds of the Commerce uninsured motorist policy were the property of Furlong's estate or of his daughter as his closest relative.  If the former, then the plaintiff could reach and apply the proceeds; otherwise, it could not. 


The court noted that under the Massachusetts Wrongful Death statute, the money recovered in a wrongful death claim is not a general asset of the estate, but constitutes a statutory trust fund held by the administrator of the estate as trustee for distribution to the statutory beneficiaries.   (In other words, under the wrongful death statute close relatives of the decedent can recover damages even if they are not included in the decedent's will and even if the decedent's debts exceed his assets.) 


Similarly, proceeds from a claim for ininsured or underinsured motorist insurance operates flow to the presumptive takers (i.e., the close relatives listed in the wrongful death statute), not to the estate.


The court held that Furlong's daughter, not his estate, was entitled to the proceeds of the uninsured motorist policy.  Therefore Bogomolski's estate could not reach and apply those proceeds.