{"id":42796,"date":"2014-10-03T06:46:35","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T12:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=42796"},"modified":"2014-10-03T13:19:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T19:19:19","slug":"nebraska-supreme-court-holds-pollution-exclusion-applicable-lead-paint-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/nebraska-supreme-court-holds-pollution-exclusion-applicable-lead-paint-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Nebraska Supreme Court Holds Pollution Exclusion Applicable to Lead Paint Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TLSS Insurance Law Blog &#8211; September 23, 2014<\/p>\n<p>In its recent decision in State Farm Fire &amp; Casualty Co. v. Dantzler, the Supreme Court of Nebraska had occasion to consider the application of pollution exclusion to an underlying personal injury claim involving an individual\u2019s exposure to lead paint.<\/p>\n<p>The case involved coverage under a rental dwelling policy issued by State Farm with the following pollution exclusion applicable to:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u00a0i. \u00a0\u00a0 bodily injury or property damage arising out of the actual, alleged or threatened discharge, dispersal, spill, release or escape of pollutants:<\/p>\n<p>(1) \u00a0 at or from premises owned, rented or occupied by the named insured;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The policy defined \u201cpollutants\u201d to mean \u201csolid, liquid, gaseous or thermal irritant or contaminant, including smoke, vapor, soot, fumes, acids, alkalis, chemicals and waste.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All parties agreed that lead paint is a \u201cpollutant.\u201d The question presented to the Court was whether the alleged injury resulted from a requisite \u201cdischarge, dispersal, dispersal, spill, release or escape\u201d of the lead paint. The Nebraska Court of Appeals denied State Farm\u2019s motion for summary judgment based, in large part, on the decision by a Connecticut intermediate court in Danbury Ins. Co. v. Novella, 727 A.2d 279 (Conn. Supp. 1998). The Danbury court held that exposure to lead paint can happen in manners other than the discharge, dispersal, release, etc. Relying on this decision, the Nebraska Court of Appeals reasoned that if lead paint exposure is not exclusively the result of a discharge, dispersal, spill, release or escape of the lead paint, then it was incumbent on State Farm to demonstrate the precise manner by which the claimant was exposed, and its failure to have done so in its motion papers raised a question of fact precluding summary judgment.<\/p>\n<p>In considering the matter, the Nebraska Supreme Court acknowledged a split in authority throughout the country as to whether the pollution exclusion is limited to matters considered traditional environmental harm, or applies more broadly to any harms resulting from pollutants. Notably, in Cincinnati Ins. Co. v. Becker Warehouse, Inc., 635 N.W.2d 112 (Neb. 2001), the Nebraska Supreme Court concluded that the pollution exclusion is not limited to matters involving traditional environmental damage since no such limitation is expressly stated in the language of the exclusion. With this in mind, the Court concluded that the Court of Appeals\u2019 reliance on the Danbury decision was in error, since the Danbury decision relied on a more limited application of the exclusion to traditional environmental harm.<\/p>\n<p>The Nebraska Supreme Court further reasoned that in any case involving exposure to lead paint, there necessarily is a separation of that paint from the painted surface which allows for the claimant\u2019s injury, and this separation is necessarily a discharge, or a dispersal, or spill, or release. This is true regardless of whether the claimant\u2019s exposure is a result of ingesting paint chips or inhaling lead paint dust. The Court therefore concluded that the exclusion necessarily applies to any claim alleging injury as a result of lead paint exposure, thus making it unnecessary for the insurer to determine the precise manner by which the exposure happened. As the Court explained:<\/p>\n<p>Because the above terms encompass the separation of lead-based paint that is inherent in every case of lead paint poisoning, the pollution exclusion is not ambiguous as applied to lead-based paint and a determination of the specific process of exposure in any particular case is not material to application of the exclusion. Regardless of how the lead-based paint is separated from the painted surface or what form it takes once it is separated, an individual\u2019s exposure to and absorption of that lead-based paint results from the \u201cdischarge, dispersal, spill, release or escape\u201d of a pollutant. Thus, it is not necessary to differentiate between the processes by which exposure occurs. It is not material to application of the pollution exclusion to determine the manner in which the injured party was allegedly exposed to lead-based paint.<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.traublieberman.com\/insurance-law\/2014\/0923\/5233\/\">Nebraska Supreme Court Holds Pollution Exclusion Applicable to Lead Paint Claim | Traub Lieberman Straus &amp; Shrewsberry LLP<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TLSS Insurance Law Blog &#8211; September 23, 2014 In its recent decision in State Farm Fire &amp; Casualty Co. v. Dantzler, the Supreme Court of Nebraska had occasion to consider the application of pollution exclusion to an underlying personal injury claim involving an individual\u2019s exposure to lead paint. The case involved coverage under a rental&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/nebraska-supreme-court-holds-pollution-exclusion-applicable-lead-paint-claim\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Nebraska Supreme Court Holds Pollution Exclusion Applicable to Lead Paint Claim<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,50,530],"class_list":["post-42796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance-claims","tag-insurance-claim","tag-lead-paint","tag-pollution-exclusion","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nebraska Supreme Court Holds Pollution Exclusion Applicable to Lead Paint Claim - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/nebraska-supreme-court-holds-pollution-exclusion-applicable-lead-paint-claim\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nebraska Supreme Court Holds Pollution Exclusion Applicable to Lead Paint Claim - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"TLSS Insurance Law Blog &#8211; September 23, 2014 In its recent decision in State Farm Fire &amp; Casualty Co. v. 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