Bridgeton Landfill, LLC has taken its case involving environmental contamination and insurance coverage to Illinois state appellate court. The company is appealing a decision made by the Circuit Court of Cook County on August 16, 2024, which granted a motion by Continental Casualty Company and National Fire Insurance Company of Hartford to stay the proceedings in Illinois. The court ruled that the matter should be resolved in Missouri where related lawsuits are already pending.
Bridgeton Landfill, LLC, a Delaware-based company with its principal place of business in Arizona, filed the complaint on October 12, 2022. The defendants in this case are Continental Casualty Company and National Fire Insurance Company of Hartford, both headquartered in Chicago. Bridgeton is seeking declaratory judgment regarding the defendants' duty to defend and indemnify it against several lawsuits filed between 2016 and 2018 in St. Louis County, Missouri. These lawsuits allege that contamination from Bridgeton's landfill migrated to surrounding properties.
The core of Bridgeton's argument revolves around several commercial general liability policies issued by the defendants between 1985 and 1990. According to Bridgeton, these policies obligate the insurers to cover defense costs and potential settlements arising from contamination claims. However, Resolute Management Inc., acting on behalf of the defendants, denied coverage under some policies and ceased defending Bridgeton once they claimed policy limits were exhausted.
In response to these denials, Bridgeton sought legal recourse through a breach of contract claim and requested attorney fees under section 115 of the Illinois Insurance Code for what it described as "vexatious and unreasonable refusal to defend." In November 2022, Continental Casualty Company and National Fire Insurance Company countered by filing their own petition for declaratory relief in Missouri's circuit court. They argued that since all underlying lawsuits were based in Missouri and involved Missouri properties, it was more appropriate for this matter to be resolved there.
The Circuit Court of Cook County agreed with this argument and stayed the Illinois action pending resolution in Missouri. This decision was based on four factors outlined in Kellerman v. MCI Telecommunications Corp.: comity (respecting another jurisdiction's laws), prevention of multiplicity (avoiding multiple lawsuits), likelihood of obtaining complete relief elsewhere, and res judicata (the effect of one court's judgment on another). The court found that these factors favored staying the Illinois case because Missouri had significant connections to the dispute—such as being home to both the landfill site and all underlying lawsuits.
Bridgeton Landfill has appealed this decision arguing that it was an abuse of discretion not to prioritize their initial filing in Illinois over subsequent actions taken by defendants in Missouri. They also contend that their choice not to consolidate claims against Travelers Insurance into one lawsuit with those against Continental Casualty Company was justified due to different discovery needs.
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