Policyholders, Insurers Laud 9th Circ. Enviro Cleanup Ruling

Heather Habes' commentary was included in a Law360 article about a Ninth Circuit ruling that revived San Bernardino County's request for coverage of environmental cleanup costs, finding that commercial general liability policies issued by an AIG unit in the 1960s and 1970s were ambiguous about their aggregate limits. Heather noted it was significant that the county was able to present internal communications between insurer employees to bolster its arguments. "This is an area of frequent discovery in insurance coverage disputes," she said, adding that "obtaining the types of admissions that we find in the San Bernardino case is becoming more difficult, to the extent that courts are upholding those privileges."