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Reason And Pollution: Construing The "Absolute" Pollution Exclusion In Context And In Light Of Its Purpose And Party Expectations, Jeffrey W. Stempel

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Responding to the flurry of environmental coverage litigation over the application of the “sudden and accidental” pollution exclusion, the insurance industry during the mid-1980s largely adopted new standard pollution exclusion language for commercial general liability (CGL) policies. Since the mid-1980s, the standard form CGL has included the so-called absolute pollution exclusion, which provides that the insurance does not apply to bodily injury or property damage “arising out of the actual, alleged or threatened discharge, dispersal, seepage, migration, release, or escape of pollutants.” A “pollutant” is defined as “any solid, liquid, gaseous or thermal irritant or contaminant, including smoke, vapor, soot, …