North Star Mutual Ins. Co. v. Lyle Rodin
Split Score
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Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to North Star Mutual Insurance Company, holding that the policy’s pollution exclusion unambiguously bars coverage for injuries allegedly caused by carbon-monoxide emitted from a portable heater on the Rodins’ farm. The court declined to certify the interpretive question to the North Dakota Supreme Court, predicting that under North Dakota law the exclusion would be read as an "absolute" bar rather than a narrow, environment-only limitation.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Whether standard-form pollution exclusion clauses in commercial general-liability policies operate as narrow, environment-related exclusions or as broad, 'absolute' exclusions that bar coverage for non-environmental bodily-injury claims caused by substances such as carbon monoxide.
Circuit Positions
Pollution exclusion is ambiguous and applies only to traditional environmental pollution; claims for indoor carbon-monoxide exposure are covered.
Pollution exclusion is unambiguous and operates as an 'absolute' bar to coverage for any injury arising from the discharge or release of a pollutant, including indoor carbon-monoxide exposure.
Conflict Summary
Some circuits treat the pollution exclusion narrowly, limiting it to traditional environmental pollution on grounds of ambiguity or insureds’ reasonable expectations (e.g., 2d & 10th Circuits). Other circuits—including the Eighth Circuit in this opinion—treat the same clause as an unambiguous, 'absolute' exclusion that bars coverage for any injury arising from the discharge or release of a pollutant such as carbon monoxide (e.g., 5th & 8th Circuits).