Client:

Alpha Natural Resources, Inc.

Issue:

Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. (Alpha) suffered more than $100 million in losses related to 400 bodily injury and property damage actions arising from its coal mining operations in West Virginia and its insurers were denying coverage.

Challenge:  

The insurers brought a motion for summary judgment based on an absolute pollution exclusion clause, arguing that the losses resulted from non-covered pollution events.

Solution:

Perkins Coie persuaded the court to reject the London insurer’s motion for summary judgment on the absolute pollution exclusion.  Our lawyers demonstrated that West Virginia law required that policy exclusions be carefully analyzed within the context of the entire policy, the operations that the policy was purchased to insure, and the claim at issue.  The operations and the claims at issue involved coal mining, therefore the court found that necessary activities related to the extraction and washing of coal were not “seepage pollution or contamination” under the policy in question.

We also persuaded the court that prior insurance industry representations to state regulators were inconsistent with insurance company arguments for exclusions of bodily injury and property damage claims from policies covering coal mining operations.  As a result, the parties engaged in settlement discussions and reached a global settlement that netted 80 percent of the client’s claimed losses.