ALLEGHENY LUDLUM LLC v. 21 (2021)

OPINION *

Appellant Allegheny Ludlum, LLC appeals the District Court's grant of summary judgment to its insurers Liberty Mutual Insurance Company; Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company (together “Liberty”); Hartford Casualty Insurance Company; Hartford Accident & Indemnity Company (together “Hartford”); and United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company (“USF&G”).¹ The District Court rejected Allegheny Ludlum's assertion that the four-year statute of limitations had not expired on its declaratory judgment and bad faith claims against Appellees Liberty and Hartford.² Applying the Pennsylvania Superior Court en banc decision in Selective Way Insurance Co. v. Hospitality Group Services, Inc.,³ the District Court determined Allegheny Ludlum's cause of action accrued when the insurers denied coverage in 2010, seven years before Allegheny Ludlum filed suit. We will affirm the District Court as to the claims against those insurers substantially for the reasons set forth in the District Court's Memorandum and Order.

We will also affirm the grant of summary judgment in favor of Appellee USF&G. The District Court relied upon the absence of a covered “occurrence” under the policy.⁴ We need not determine if there was a covered occurrence because the USF&G pollution provision clearly excludes coverage of bodily injury that “would not have occurred but for exposure to pollutants.”⁵ It is clear that the plaintiffs’ claims arose from their exposure to hexavalent chromium in welding fumes, and that the District Court correctly identified those fumes as a pollutant within the scope of the pollution exclusion. Accordingly, we will also affirm the District Court's order as to USF&G.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Appellee Continental Casualty Company was dismissed per the Court's January 6, 2021 order.

2.   Allegheny Ludlum, LLC, v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 487 F. Supp. 3d 350, 355-60 (W.D. Pa 2020).

3.   119 A.3d 1035 (Pa. Super. 2015).

4.   See Allegheny Ludlum, 487 F. Supp. 3d at 360 (citing Kvaerner Metals Div. of Kvaerner U.S., Inc. v. Comm. Union Ins. Co., 589 Pa. 317, 908 A.2d 888, 897 (2006)).

5.   Id. at 363.

McKEE, Circuit Judge