Franklin Mut. Ins. v. Metro. Prop. & Cas. Ins., 406 N.J. Super. 586, 968 A. 2d 1191 (App. Div. 2009)
Practice Areas: Environmental & Toxic Tort Litigation
Our firm represented Franklin Mutual Insurance Company in this case, which addressed the issue of how the “continuous trigger” theory adopted by the New Jersey Supreme Court in Owens-Illinois, Inc. v. United Insurance Co., 138 N.J. 437, 650 A.2d 974 (1994),
should be applied in allocating insurance coverage in long-term environmental contamination cases when the contaminated property changes ownership while the contamination takes place.
The Appellate Division agreed with our assertion s, and rejected the arguments of our adversary, holding that liability is based on a pro rata allocation of the cleanup costs between insurers for the same named insured without regard to the period of time that the insured owned the property.