Farm Family Mut. Ins. Co. v. Bagley
| Decision Date | 22 September 1978 |
| Citation | 64 A.D.2d 1014,409 N.Y.S.2d 294 |
| Parties | FARM FAMILY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Respondent, v. Howard BAGLEY and John Bagley, Appellants. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Gage & Gage, by Schuyler Van Horn, Geneva, for appellants.
Wickes, Weidman & Jordan, by George Mackey, Rochester, for respondent.
Before MOULE, J. P., and CARDAMONE, SIMONS, SCHNEPP and WITMER, JJ.
Defendants were hired by one Howard Tuttle to spray his oat fields. They did so by a boom sprayer which released 2.4-D Amin approximately 18 inches above the ground while the tractor to which it was affixed traveled in an east and west direction through the fields. Melvine Bodine, Sr., a neighbor owning property north of Tuttle, brought action against defendants, claiming that the sprayed chemicals were carried to his land and settled upon it causing damage to his vineyards and crops.
Plaintiff, insurer of defendants, brought this declaratory judgment action to obtain a judicial determination of its obligation to defendants to defend them in the Bodine action, or pay damages found against them. Special Term granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, finding that the Bodine damage claim was excluded from coverage under the terms of the policy.
Where an insurance policy is ambiguous or subject to more than one reasonable construction, it will be construed most favorably to the insured and most strictly against the insurer (Matter of Vanguard Ins. Co., 18 N.Y.2d 376, 381, 275 N.Y.S.2d 515, 519, 222 N.E.2d 383, 386; Insurance Co. of North America v. Godwin, 46 A.D.2d 154, 157, 361 N.Y.S.2d 461, 464). This rule is particularly applicable when ambiguities are found within an exclusionary clause (Lipton Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 34 N.Y.2d 356, 361, 357 N.Y.S.2d 705, 707, 314 N.E.2d 37, 38). In this case the exclusion in controversy provides that the insurer is not obligated to defend or indemnify for "bodily injury or property damage arising out of the discharge, dispersal, release or escape of the smoke, vapors, soot, fumes, acids, alkalis, toxic chemicals . . . , but this exclusion does not apply if such discharge, dispersal, release or escape is sudden and accidental." Plaintiff contends that the discharge of the chemicals was intentional, not accidental, and therefore the policy excluded coverage for the damage to the Bodine property.
In construing whether or not a certain result is accidental, it is customary to view the...
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