ELR Citation: 41 ELR 20110
No(s). 09-0033 (E.D. Wash. Mar 3, 2011)

A district court held that personal injury provisions contained in an insurance policy require the insurer to indemnify a mining company for any monetary liability arising from its contamination of land and water on and adjacent to a uranium mining site on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington. The insurer argued that the scope of the policy's personal injury liability coverage does not encompass the mine's liability in the underlying CERCLA cost recovery action. But the CERCLA claims are analogous to claims for trespass, nuisance, and interference with the use of private occupancy and fall under the policy's stated coverage of personal injury claims for "wrongful entry" or "invasion of the right of private occupancy." And while portions of the policy concerning bodily injury and property damage contain pollution exclusion clauses, the portion on personal injury does not. The insurers motion for partial summary judgment was therefore denied.