Evanston Insurance coverage Co. could but be required to pay for damages beneath an extra legal responsibility coverage following a 2014 fish oil plant explosion killed one man and injured others, the Mississippi Supreme Courtroom stated this week.
The court docket reversed a trial court docket’s dismissal of the go well with by Omega Protein and remanded the case, discovering that the legal responsibility coverage didn’t essentially exclude bodily accidents. As in quite a lot of insurance coverage protection instances lately, the appeals court docket determination turned on what the court docket stated was a poorly worded exclusion clause.
“As a result of the air pollution exclusion within the insurance coverage contract was ambiguous, it should be construed in opposition to the insurer and in favor of the insured, permitting protection,” Justice Josiah Coleman wrote for the court docket. “Additional, we discover the query of whether or not protection was triggered is ruled by the language of the contract and that Evanston has didn’t show there might be no protection beneath the surplus legal responsibility coverage.”
The opinion‘s wording was strikingly just like different federal and state court docket rulings across the nation in insurance coverage fits. Earlier this month, concerning a fireworks manufacturing facility explosion in Alabama, the eleventh Circuit U.S. Courtroom of Appeals found that the insurer had an obligation to defend the policyholder in court docket, as a result of a legal responsibility exclusion coverage was ambiguous.
In 2020, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom additionally discovered {that a} coverage excluding “bodily abuse” was too ambiguous to bar protection for accidents incurred in an assault.
Within the Mississippi case, 4 subcontractor workers have been repairing a fish oil storage tank at Omega’s plant in Moss Level, on the coast. Jerry Lee Taylor II, of Cellular, Alabama, was killed and three others have been critically injured when the highest of the tank blew off, in accordance with information experiences on the time.
A number of lawsuits have been filed in opposition to the Houston-based Omega Protein. The corporate’s legal responsibility insurer, Colony Insurance coverage, requested the Jackson County, Mississippi, Circuit Courtroom for a declaration that the coverage didn’t cowl bodily accidents. Evanston Insurance coverage, which had bought a $5 million extra legal responsibility coverage, additionally argued that its coverage didn’t cowl the accidents.
Colony settled one of many claims for the boundaries of its coverage, and the circuit court docket granted Evanston’s movement for abstract judgment. Omega, which argued that it was a further insured on the subcontractor’s coverage, appealed.
The Evanston exclusion clause barred protection for losses arising from “seepage of pollution,” together with irritants and contaminants. However the Supreme Courtroom discovered that the coverage didn’t outline what irritants and contaminants are, and that pure byproducts of the storage tanks included flammable gases.
“The air pollution exclusion at problem is vulnerable to multiple affordable interpretation and, subsequently, is ambiguous,” the justices famous.
Evanston is a part of Markel Corp., based mostly in Illinois. AM Finest has given it an A (wonderful) ranking for monetary power.
Picture: The buckled tank after the explosion on the fish processing plant in 2014. (AP Picture/The Solar Herald, Tim Isbell)
Subjects
Mississippi
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