ZRZ Realty Co. v. Beneficial Fire & Casualty Insurance

241 P.3d 710, 349 Or. 117, 2010 Ore. LEXIS 791
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 14, 2010
DocketCC 9708-06226; CA A121145; SC S057155
StatusPublished
Cited by45 cases

This text of 241 P.3d 710 (ZRZ Realty Co. v. Beneficial Fire & Casualty Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
ZRZ Realty Co. v. Beneficial Fire & Casualty Insurance, 241 P.3d 710, 349 Or. 117, 2010 Ore. LEXIS 791 (Or. 2010).

Opinion

*122 KISTLER, J.

This case arises out of a dispute over insurance coverage for plaintiffs’ ship dismantling business. Before this court, the parties have raised primarily two issues. The first is whether plaintiffs or defendants had the burden to prove that environmental damages resulting from the operation of plaintiffs’ business were neither expected nor intended. On that issue, the Court of Appeals held that, when the insurance policies that defendants issued expressly granted coverage only for unexpected and unintended damages, plaintiffs had the burden of proving that their loss came within that coverage. ZRZ Realty v. Beneficial Fire and Casualty Ins., 222 Or App 453, 472-73, 194 P3d 167 (2008), modified on recons, 225 Or App 257, 201 P3d 912 (2009). However, the court also held that, when the insurance policies granted broad coverage subject to an implied limitation for expected or intended damages, the implied limitation functioned as an exclusion that defendants had the burden to prove. 222 Or App at 474-75.

The second issue that the parties have raised involves protection and indemnity policies in which defendants agreed to indemnify plaintiffs for liability they incurred for “damages to any harbor, dock, * * * buoy, telegraph cable or other fixed or moveable thing whatsoever.” The Court of Appeals held that the promise to indemnify plaintiffs for “damages to any * * * other fixed or moveable thing whatsoever” did not include a promise to indemnify plaintiffs for damages to the riverbed. Id. at 488-91. Rather, according to the Court of Appeals, defendants agreed to indemnify plaintiffs only for damage to artificial structures. Id. We allowed plaintiffs’ petition for review and now affirm the Court of Appeals decision allocating the burden of proof but reverse its decision regarding coverage for damage to the riverbed.

A. Facts

Plaintiffs (collectively Zidell) are a group of related companies that began acquiring and dismantling decommissioned navy and merchant marine ships after World War II. 1 *123 Zidell towed the decommissioned ships to a site along the Willamette River in Portland (the Moody Avenue site) where it dismantled the ships for scrap, generally while the ships were tied to a dock at the site. Dismantling the ships resulted in the release of pollutants found in, among other places, the ships’ paint, batteries, motors, and fuel tanks. The pollutants included polychlorinated biphenyls, petroleum products in the form of fuel, lubricating, and hydraulic oils, and a variety of metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, and zinc. Some of the pollutants were released directly into the river; others contaminated the land on which Zidell operated its business and, from there, leached into the groundwater and the river.

Over the years, Zidell purchased different types of insurance from a variety of insurers. Only two insurers, Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s of London and Certain London Market Insurance Companies, remain in this litigation; the others have settled. The interests of the two remaining insurers are, for the purposes of this appeal, identical, and we refer to them collectively as London. From 1956 to 1983, Zidell purchased three types of insurance policies from London that are at issue in this litigation: comprehensive general liability policies, a form of marine excess coverage known as bumbershoot policies, and another form of marine insurance known as protection and indemnity policies. In setting out the facts, we discuss the comprehensive general liability policies and refer to the other policies where appropriate.

The comprehensive general liability policies consisted of primary and excess policies that provided coverage for damage to property but contained an owned property exclusion. See Schnitzer Investment Corp. v. Certain Underwriters, 341 Or 128, 138-39, 137 P3d 1282 (2006) (discussing effect of owned property exclusion on coverage for environmental contamination). From 1956 to 1965, London issued a series of comprehensive general liability policies that the parties refer to as the “implied fortuity policies.” By their terms, those policies provided coverage without regard to whether the property damage that resulted from Zidell’s business activities was either expected or intended. One policy, for example, provided coverage for “any and all liability imposed *124 by law against the Assured for loss of or damage to or destruction of the property of others * * * arising from any cause whatsoever out of the operation” of Zidell’s business.

Despite that broad grant of coverage, the trial court read a limitation into the implied fortuity policies. Specifically, the trial court ruled that “the general principle that only ‘fortuitous’ losses will be covered will be deemed a condition of each such policy, consistent with the holding in A-1 Sandblasting & Steamcleaning Co. v. Baiden, 293 Or 17, 643 P2d 1260 (1982).” As the trial court explained, that principle

“limits coverage to those losses that were not expected or intended for policies between 1957 and January 1, 1968. From January 1, 1968 until July 1, 1983, the implied fortuity doctrine limits coverage to those losses that were not intended.” 2

Both parties accept the limitation that the trial court read into the agreements that they entered into before January 1, 1968. 3

Starting in 1966, London began issuing comprehensive general liability policies to Zidell that the parties refer to as the “express fortuity policies.” Those policies provided coverage only for damages that were both unexpected and unintended. For example, in one of those policies, London agreed to pay Zidell “all sums which the Assured shall be obligated to pay by reason of the liability [ijmposed upon the Assured by law * * * for damages * * * on account of * * * [p]roperty damage * * * caused by or arising out of [an] occurrence.” The policy defined “occurrence” as an “accident or a happening or *125 event or a continuous or repeated exposure to conditions which unexpectedly and unintentionally results in * * * property damage * * * during the policy period.” 4

In 1994, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued a notice to Zidell stating that it was potentially responsible for cleaning up the environmental contamination resulting from its business at the Moody Avenue site. Zidell chose to participate in a voluntary clean-up program that DEQ offered and also requested that London, pursuant to the various policies that it had issued over the years, defend Zidell and indemnify it for the costs of remedi-ating any environmental damage that had resulted from Zidell’s business. When London denied that it had any obligation to defend or indemnify Zidell, Zidell brought this action, alleging breach of contract and also seeking a declaration of London’s obligations under its policies. 5

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Final Table, LLC v. Acceptance Casualty Ins. Co.
Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2023
Rudder v. Hosack
506 P.3d 1156 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2022)
Batten v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co.
495 P.3d 1222 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2021)
Wright v. Turner
466 P.3d 682 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2020)
Esurance Ins. Co. v. Hamm
387 F. Supp. 3d 1134 (D. Oregon, 2019)
Bighorn Logging Corp. v. Truck Ins. Exch.
437 P.3d 287 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2019)
12W RPO, LLC v. Affiliated FM Ins. Co.
353 F. Supp. 3d 1039 (D. Oregon, 2018)
State v. Corcilius
430 P.3d 169 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2018)
1000 Friends of Or. v. Jackson Cnty.
423 P.3d 793 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2018)
Eugene Water & Elec. Bd., an Or. Mun. Corp. v. Miller
417 P.3d 456 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2018)
Uptown Mkt., LLC v. Ohio Sec. Ins. Co.
286 F. Supp. 3d 1160 (D. Oregon, 2018)
Hunters Ridge Condominium Ass'n v. Sherwood Crossing, LLC
395 P.3d 892 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2017)
Colony Insurance Co. v. Victory Construction LLC
239 F. Supp. 3d 1279 (D. Oregon, 2017)
Big River Construction, Inc. v. City of Tillamook
391 P.3d 996 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2017)
West Hills Development Co. v. Chartis Claims, Inc.
385 P.3d 1053 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2016)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
241 P.3d 710, 349 Or. 117, 2010 Ore. LEXIS 791, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/zrz-realty-co-v-beneficial-fire-casualty-insurance-or-2010.