{"id":899708,"date":"2022-03-14T14:51:36","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T20:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=899708"},"modified":"2022-03-14T14:51:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T20:51:41","slug":"known-loss-doctrine-and-occurence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/known-loss-doctrine-and-occurence\/","title":{"rendered":"Landmark Montana Supreme Court Decision Series: Known Loss Doctrine &#038; Interpretation of \u201cOccurrence\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Lorelie S. Masters, Patrick M. McDermott &amp; Rachel E. Hudgins | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.huntoninsurancerecoveryblog.com\/2022\/02\/articles\/general-liability\/landmark-montana-supreme-court-decision-series-known-loss-doctrine-interpretation-of-occurrence\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Hunton Andrews Kurth<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this final post in the Blog\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/pollution-exclusion-landmark-montana\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Landmark Montana Supreme Court Decision Series<\/a>, we discuss the court\u2019s ruling on the known loss doctrine and its interpretation of \u201coccurrence\u201d in\u00a0National Indemnity Co. v. State, 499 P.3d 516 (Mont. 2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Personal injury claims against the State of Montana arose out of its alleged failure to warn Libby residents about the danger of asbestos exposure despite the State\u2019s regulatory inspections of the Libby Mine as early as the 1950s and through the 1970s. Among other defenses, the insurer contended that there was no coverage for these claims because the asbestos claims arising out of the Libby Mine were a \u201cknown loss.\u201d A \u201cknown loss\u201d defense, as the court explained, is \u201cnot based upon a provision of the Policy, but a common law principle which courts have imposed upon liability policies\u201d that \u201crequires that losses arise without the insureds\u2019 knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The insurer argued that Montana knew about the asbestos-related conditions at the Libby Mine prior to July 1973 when the policy was issued. The court rejected that argument, finding it \u201clargely divorced from historical factual context.\u201d It explained that Montana regulatory involvement was \u201cfor good\u201d and \u201cto enhance safety.\u201d Given that, it was \u201cunexpected\u201d and \u201cincomprehensible\u201d that Montana\u2019s actions would later be declared \u201charmful to thousands of people.\u201d And so the loss was not one that Montana \u201ceven suspected was substantially certain to occur.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The court also addressed the parties\u2019 dispute over the number of occurrences. The insurer contended there was one occurrence because the asbestos claims against Montana \u201cstem[med] from one cause: the State\u2019s singular decision to conceal its knowledge of asbestos conditions in Libby in reliance on a 1942 Attorney General Opinion.\u201d The State argued for multiple occurrences, claiming that its liability was not based on a single decision but instead \u201con multiple alleged failures to disseminate information contained in separate inspection reports at different times over two decades with different information in each report.\u201d The trial court charted a third path, finding \u201ca different \u2018occurrence\u2019 for each of a given Libby Claimant\u2019s aggregated exposure to asbestos that were distinct from the time, location, routes, and circumstances of the exposures of other Libby Claimants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Montana Supreme Court agreed with the State. It said that \u201crelevant event\u201d was \u201cthe State\u2019s failure to warn the Libby Claimants of their hazardous exposure to asbestos.\u201d Because the record was unclear on how many times the State failed to warn, the court remanded the case to the trial court for a determination of how many occurrences there were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These parts of the opinion illustrate the potential for key insurance coverage issues turning on courts\u2019 views of the underlying facts and how they fit into existing rubrics for deciding things like the number of occurrences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When one of your cases is in need of a construction expert, estimates, insurance appraisal or umpire services in defect or insurance disputes &#8211; please call Advise &amp; Consult, Inc. at 888.684.8305, or email <a href=\"mailto:experts@adviseandconsult.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">experts@adviseandconsult.net<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lorelie S. Masters, Patrick M. McDermott &amp; Rachel E. Hudgins | Hunton Andrews Kurth In this final post in the Blog\u2019s\u00a0Landmark Montana Supreme Court Decision Series, we discuss the court\u2019s ruling on the known loss doctrine and its interpretation of \u201coccurrence\u201d in\u00a0National Indemnity Co. v. State, 499 P.3d 516 (Mont. 2021). Personal injury claims against&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/known-loss-doctrine-and-occurence\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Landmark Montana Supreme Court Decision Series: Known Loss Doctrine &#038; Interpretation of \u201cOccurrence\u201d<\/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":[10721],"tags":[9895,10385,10727],"class_list":["post-899708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-insurance","tag-advise-consult","tag-known-loss-doctrine","tag-occurrence-2","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>Landmark Montana Supreme Court Decision Series: Known Loss Doctrine &amp; 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