Insurance Counsel Quoted on Long-Term Environmental Losses

This article, about a Missouri state court ruling that long-term environmental losses should be divvied among insurers based on the amount of time they covered the risk, quotes insurance of counsel Marc Mayerson.

According to Mr. Mayerson, the judge's opinion didn't include enough analysis to decide the matter for good.

"It doesn't add much to the discussion nationally, and it really doesn't add a lot other than, 'There are two lines of cases, and I think this line is better,'" Mayerson said. "It's something that will be revisited by Missouri courts, and the right arguments with the right courts should produce a different result."

He also added that the judge should have considered that any ambiguities in insurance policies should be interpreted in favor of policyholders.

"If two groups of judges nationwide looking at the same language and looking at the same fact pattern think that they're all being intelligent and principled and come to different outcomes, doesn't that tell one about the question that they seek to answer?" Mayerson said.