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Textron6/22/2000
Insurance coverage for a manufacturer's pollution-cleanup costs forms the declaration page of this appeal. A Superior Court motion justice granted partial summary judgment in favor of the defendant-insurer, Insurance Company of North America (INA), and against the plaintiff-insured, Textron, Inc. (Textron), ruling that no insurance coverage existed under the circumstances of this case. Textron argues on appeal that the motion justice: (1) incorrectly applied the trigger-of-coverage doctrine that we formulated in CPC International, Inc. v. Northbrook Excess & Surplus Insurance Co., 668 A.2d 647 (R.I. 1995) (CPC I) and (2) erred in holding that the pollution-exclusion clauses in the insurance polices at issue precluded coverage for the type of gradually occurring damage in question (namely, the eventual contamination of groundwater as a result of chemical seepage from a so-called neutralization pond that Textron maintained at its Wheatfield, New York, plant site). For the reasons unearthed below, we reverse, vacate the summary judgment, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Facts and Travel
From 1960 to 1973, Textron, a manufacturer of aerospace equipment, leased an eighty-acre manufacturing site in Wheatfield, New York from Bell Aircraft Corporation (Bell). In 1973 it bought the property from Bell and, until 1987, it continued to use this site for manufacturing a wide range of aerospace-related equipment, including helicopter components, aircraft prototypes, and rocket-propulsion hardware. During its long-term use of the site, Textron's manufacturing processes generated toxic chemical wastes. To capture, contain, treat, and neutralize these wastes, it employed an artificial holding pond at the site as a waste receptacle and depository. After treating these wastes, Textron would release them into the site's sanitary-drainage system. However, unbeknownst to Textron, some of this toxic waste gradually seeped from the pond and, over the years, contaminated or contributed to the contamination of the surrounding groundwater.
During the 1980s the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) charged Textron with polluting dozens of sites across the United States, including Wheatfield. As a result, the EPA sued Textron under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C. ยงยง 9601 to 9675 (CERCLA), a strict-liability statute that allows the EPA either to demand that responsible parties voluntarily clean up polluted sites or else reimburse the EPA for its costs in conducting the cleanup operations. Textron, in turn, filed suit in August 1987 against approximately thirty of its own comprehensive general-liability insurers and excess-insurance carriers, including the present defendant, INA, seeking coverage for the site-cleanup costs. Because Textron has settled its claims with all of its other insurers that moved for summary judgment, INA is the only remaining defendant on this appeal.
The policies INA sold to Textron for 1979-81 and 1984-86 contained the following so-called pollution-exclusion clause:
"This insurance does not apply to bodily injury or property damage arising out of the discharge, dispersal, release or escape of smoke, vapors, soots, fumes, acids, alkalis, toxic chemicals, liquids or gases, waste materials or other irritants, contaminants or pollutants into or upon land, the atmosphere or any water course or body of water, but this exclusion does not apply if such discharge, dispersal, release or escape is sudden and accidental." (Emphasis added.)
The policy INA provided to Textron for the period 1982-84 stated as follows:
"This insurance does not cover
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