Travelers Casualty & Surety Company v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's of London
Court of Appeals of New York
760 N.E.2d 319 (2001)
Travelers (plaintiff) provided liability coverage to Koppers and DuPont and obtained catastrophic excess reinsurance from Lloyd's and other reinsurers (defendants) under treaties covering "each and every loss" from a single "disaster and/or casualty," which grouped only a related "series" of occurrences into one loss; after settling separate environmental contamination lawsuits against Koppers and DuPont, Travelers treated each entire settlement as a single disaster traceable to one common origin (improper waste disposal) and sought reimbursement accordingly, but Travelers's own pleadings never showed the underlying occurrences were related by time or location, and the trial court granted the reinsurers summary judgment.
Whether losses from environmental-injury claims resulting from activities at several industrial and waste-disposal sites may be aggregated into a single claim under reinsurance treaties.