Environmental Insurance Litigation A State By State Case Law Survey 2022

ALABAMA

"As Damages"

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that Superfund "response costs" are "damages" in Alabama Plating Co. v. USF&G, 690 So.2d 331 (Ala. 1996). More recently, the court also ruled in Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's, London v. Southern Natural Gas Co., No. 1110698 (Ala. June 28, 2013) that costs incurred by a pipeline operator to remediate PCB contamination were "damages" and not merely sums that the insured had voluntarily agreed to pay as a business decision. The court declined to distinguish between clean ups resulting from a court order or governmental directive and those that, as here, were voluntarily performed by the insured.

"Occurrence"

In U.S.F.&G. v. Armstrong, 479 So.2d 1164 (Ala. 1985), the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that contamination resulting from insured's removal of sewer line was an "occurrence" since harm though foreseeable, was not intended. More recently, a federal district court held in Associated Scrap Metal, Inc.