Our Daily Opinion Summary writers have picked some interesting cases to highlight this week, with one in particular cutting close to home.
First up, we leave the lower forty-eight and head up to Alaska with AES Corp. v. Steadfast Ins. Co.. The case involved the village and city of Kivalina, a community located on an Alaskan barrier island, which filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court against AES and other defendants for allegedly damaging the village by causing global warming through the emission of greenhouse gases. AES requested that Steadfast provide a defense and insurance coverage pursuant to the terms of their commercial general liability policy. Steadfast provided AES a defense under a reservation of rights and filed a declaratory judgment action, claiming that it did not owe AES a defense or indemnity regarding the Complaint brought by Kivalina. The circuit court granted Steadfast’s motion for summary judgment, holding that the Complaint filed by Kivalina did not allege property damage caused by an “occurrence” as that term was defined in AES’s contracts of insurance with Steadfast.
