ELR Citation: 41 ELR 20161
No(s). 5:09-cv-04485 (N.D. Cal. Apr 20, 2011)

A district court dismissed an insurance company's CERCLA §§107 and 112 claim for response costs incurred by one of its policy holders seeking to redevelop the site of a former aerospace manufacturing facility. Because insurance payments made pursuant to a contractual obligation are not "response costs" under CERCLA, and because an insurer is not a party (innocent or otherwise) in the "CERCLA sense," it is ineligible to assert a claim under §107. The insurer therefore lacks standing to pursue a direct action for recovery of its insurance payments under §107(a). The company's federal subrogation claim under §112(c)(2) also must be dismissed because it failed to show that it provided compensation to a "claimant" as defined by CERCLA. Nothing in the statute supports the insurer's contention that compensation paid on an insurance claim constitutes compensation pursuant to CERCLA where, as here, the insured has not pursued a claim against a liable party or the Superfund.