Client:

NorthWestern Energy

Issue:

NorthWestern Energy (NorthWestern), an investor-owned utility and one of the largest providers of electricity and natural gas in the northwest quadrant of the United States, sought recovery of losses due to environmental liabilities and bad faith at numerous sites, including some sites with natural resource damages, for claims in excess of $100 million.

Challenge:

As the case involves multiple historic environmental liabilities and insurance policies that span several decades from the 1920s through the 1970s, we must deal with several issues, including missing and incomplete policies, notice, and trigger and allocation.     

Solution:  

Perkins Coie successfully obtained settlements with five of the six insurance companies and is in active litigation with the last insurer. 

We successfully defeated Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s of London’s summary judgment motion on bad faith and the court granted our partial summary judgment motion on coverage for one of the largest sites, Milltown Dam.  We ultimately eliminated 25 of the insurer's affirmative defenses and significantly held that the insurer must demonstrate prejudice for its late notice defense. 

Further, when ruling against London’s summary judgment motion on bad faith, the court held that this case is a “rare exception” and that London’s litigation tactics, such as its pleadings, are admissible to prove bad faith in this case, since London’s first denial of the environmental claims was its answer filed two years after the litigation began.

Over the life of the case, the team has obtained precedent-setting victories via summary judgment rulings on the issues of trigger of coverage, allocation and notice.  The team has also been successful in numerous discovery motions, including defeating efforts by London to shield their claims files and activities under the guise of attorney-client privilege or work product protection and obtaining discovery of London’s reserves and reinsurance information.