Two recent federal appellate decisions – one from the Second Circuit, one from the Ninth – will be useful tools for policyholders pursuing coverage for environmental liabilities under both legacy and current liability programs.
The first is Town of Harrietstown v. Westchester Fire Insurance Co., No. 25-2253-cv (2d Cir. May 4, 2026) (applying New York law). The Town owns the Adirondack Regional Airport and received a Potentially Responsible Party (PRP) letter from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation regarding PFAS contamination linked to firefighting foam. The insurers took up the defense under a reservation of rights, but later withdrew and argued that the policies’ “Combined Claims” provision allowed them to slice the single PRP demand into separate claims based on whether the contamination came from training uses (excluded) or emergency response (potentially within the pollution exclusion’s crash/fire/explosion exception). The Second Circuit rejected that
