Congratulations to Weston Hurd’s John Farnan and Dan Richards. In a May 24, 2023 opinion, in Lamorak Insurance Co. v. Goodrich Corporation, the Summit County Court of Common Pleas ordered that their client, an insurance carrier, did not owe an additional $110 million of insurance coverage to Goodrich for an environmental loss claim.
The matter involved the issue of whether the occurrence coverage limits for a multiyear policy provides a single coverage limit for the entire three-year term of the policy or an annual limit which applies per year for each of the policy years.
The Court was asked to construe a three-year insurance policy that was in place between 1969 and 1972 with a $40 million coverage limit and another policy that was in place between 1972 and 1975 with a $15 million coverage limit. After paying out $40 million on a prior policy and $55 million on the two policies at issue, the carrier took the position that those payments exhausted the policy coverage. Goodrich disagreed, arguing that it was entitled to an additional $80 million under the 1969-1972 policy and an additional $30 million under the 1972-1975 policy.
Farnan and Richards worked as co-counsel with the Philadelphia law firm of White and Williams. The team prevailed on the argument that each of the two policies at issue provided a single per term coverage limit and since the carrier had already paid out a total of $55 million, under the two polices, that it owed no further coverage.
The Court agreed, holding that Goodrich is limited to the per term policy limits and not to annual per year limits, rejecting the argument that the policy language was ambiguous and ruling that the carrier did not owe an additional $110 million in insurance coverage on the environmental claim.
