Back in the days of the environmental insurance coverage wars, we on the policyholder side argued (eventually successfully in New Jersey) that the word “sudden”, as used in the 1973 version of the pollution exclusion, meant “unexpected” and did not have a temporal connotation. My friends in the defense bar often criticized us for trying

The ongoing battles over construction defect coverage remind me of the good old days in the ‘80’s and ‘90s when we used to fight over asbestos and environmental coverage claims (we still have some of those claims, but to a much lesser extent). Construction defects even involve battles over the appropriate trigger of coverage!  Ah

My old law partner Carl Salisbury is on the warpath against carriers’ efforts to escape construction defect coverage.  He has some interesting things to say about a recent pro-carrier South Carolina decision.  You can read Carl’s excellent blog post by clicking here.  (I promise not to call them “business risk” exclusions any more,

It’s amazing how, when the economy tanked, construction defects began to multiply exponentially.  I’m not (necessarily) trying to ascribe purely financial motives to the plaintiffs in these cases, but there’s no doubt that, at my firm at least, we’ve seen a marked increase in the amount of coverage litigation over construction defects.

So, what’s the