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ARTICLE · 15 OCTOBER 2012

California Permits Stacking And The "Uber-Policy"

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The California Supreme Court has issued a landmark ruling expanding the insurance coverage available for environmental clean-ups and other "long-tail" liabilities in State of California v. Continental Ins. Co., Case No. 170560 (August 9, 2012).

United StatesInsurance
Raymond Sheen
Raymond Sheen
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The California Supreme Court has issued a landmark ruling expanding the insurance coverage available for environmental clean-ups and other “long-tail” liabilities in State of California v. Continental Ins. Co., Case No. 170560 (August 9, 2012).

Continental is the latest chapter in decades of litigation regarding the Stringfellow Acid Pits.  Stringfellow was a waste disposal site constructed in the 1950s, in a canyon lined with impermeable rock—or so it was believed at the time.  Millions of gallons of industrial waste were deposited at Stringfellow until 1972, when the State of California closed the site after detecting groundwater contamination.  Current estimates for remediating the site range as high as $700 million.

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