Stone Container Corp. v. Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 04 March 1999
• Docket Number: 97-1989,Nos. 97-1860,s. 97-1860
• Citation: 165 F.3d 1157
• Parties: STONE CONTAINER CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. HARTFORD STEAM BOILER INSPECTION AND INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1157

165 F.3d 1157

STONE CONTAINER CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. HARTFORD STEAM BOILER INSPECTION AND INSURANCE COMPANY Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

Nos. 97-1860, 97-1989.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Jan. 5, 1999.

Decided Jan. 26, 1999.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied March 4, 1999.

Jeffrey A. Berman (argued), Lawrence R. Samuels, Ross & Hardies, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant in No. 97-1860.

Philips Beck (argued), Andrew L. Goldman, Bartlit, Beck, Herman, Palenchar & Scott, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

Lawrence R. Samuels, Jeffrey A. Berman (argued), Jacquelyn F. Kidder, Peter J. Valeta, Ross & Haries, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant in No. 97-1989.

Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and WOOD, JR. and MANION, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Chief Judge.

The plaintiff in this insurance suit, Stone Container Corporation, is a large manufacturer of pulp, paper, and paper products. It makes the pulp in huge steel tanks called "pulp digesters." Wood chips are placed in the tank along with chemicals. The tank is then sealed and its contents subjected to heat and pressure from steam piped into the tank, causing the chips to decompose into pulp fiber. One of the tanks in one of Stone's plants exploded when a thin area of its steel shell ruptured during the high-pressure operation of the tank. The explosion blew a 28-ton chunk into the air; it landed more than 200 feet away with disastrous results. Besides much property damage, several workers were killed. The plant was forced to shut down for months. Stone Container incurred total losses in excess of $80 million.

Stone had an "all-risks" insurance policy from Lloyd's that, the parties agree, covered an accident of this kind. But it also had a "boiler and machinery insurance" policy from Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. Lloyd's believed that Hartford's policy was primary and that Lloyd's should have to pay on its own policy only if Hartford was determined not to be legally obligated to pay for Stone's losses. Because the accident caused liquidity problems for Stone, Lloyd's was able to make a deal whereby Stone agreed to sue Hartford (which had denied coverage) and in exchange Lloyd's lent Stone one-half of the insurance proceeds to which Stone would be entitled if it won the suit against Hartford. It is unclear to us what incentive Stone had to press such a suit vigorously, the dispute really being between the insurance companies; but it has done so.

The Hartford policy is limited to accidents to particular enumerated "objects" in Stone's plants. The enumeration covers a broad range of different types of machinery, but there is an exclusion for losses caused by "explosions." There is also an exception to the exclusion. The exception is "for loss caused by or resulting from an explosion of an 'object' of a kind described below ...: Explosion of any: (1) Steam boiler; (2) Electric steam generator; (3) Steam piping; (4) Steam turbine; (5) Steam engine; (6) Gas turbine; or (7) Moving or rotating machinery [if the explosion is] caused by centrifugal force or mechanical breakdown." Anything within the exception is covered by Hartford's policy. If, therefore, either the accident to the pulp digester was not an "explosion," and so was not within the exclusion, or it was an explosion of "an 'object' of a kind described" in the list in the exception to the exclusion, and so was within the exception, then Hartford's policy covers the accident; otherwise it does not.

The district judge granted summary judgment for Stone. He held that although the accident was indeed an explosion, the policy is ambiguous as to whether a pulp digester is an object "of a kind" described in the list of kinds of machinery excepted from the exclusion, and an ambiguity in an insurance contract is, under Illinois law, which governs the substantive issues in this diversity suit, to be resolved in favor of the insured. He refused to allow Hartford to present evidence to disambiguate the ambiguity.

Hartford has appealed, arguing that the policy unambiguously excludes pulp digesters; in the alternative it asks for a remand to enable it to present evidence of drafting history and the like to show that the parties intended to exclude pulp digesters. Stone has cross-appealed, arguing an alternative ground for affirmance of the judgment to the district court's ground: that what happened to the pulp digester was not an explosion. Of course Stone did not have to file a cross-appeal to argue for an alternative ground of affirmance, and in fact should not have done so. A cross-appeal is necessary and proper only when the appellee wants the appellate court to alter the judgment (the bottom line, not the grounds or reasoning) of the district court. Coe v. County of Cook, 162 F.3d 491, 497 (7th Cir.1998).

We shall take up the alternative ground for affirmance first. Stone argues that "explosion" means, for exclusion purposes at any rate, a sudden and violent release of energy (which of course we have here) caused by combustion or some other chemical reaction (which we don't have here). The qualification "for exclusion purposes" is noteworthy. Stone believes that the same word should be read narrowly when it appears in an exclusion from coverage, and broadly when it appears in an exception to an exclusion, even if the context is the same. Thus, "explosion" might mean a sudden and violent release of energy caused by combustion or some other chemical reaction in the exclusion clause but in the exception to the exclusion clause might mean any rupture. Stone offers no support for this suggestion, in cases or other recognized legal authorities, beyond the principle that ambiguities in insurance contracts should be resolved in favor of the insured: the principle of "contra proferentem," well discussed in Jeffrey W. Stempel, Interpretation of Insurance Contracts: Law and Strategy for Insurers and Policyholders § 5.2 (1994), which Illinois applies even where, as in this case, the insured is a large and sophisticated firm, provided it didn't actually negotiate over the terms of coverage. Outboard Marine Corp. v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 154 Ill.2d 90, 180 Ill.Dec. 691, 607 N.E.2d 1204, 1218-19 (Ill.1992); see generally Stempel, supra, ch. 23. Stone's suggestion would make insurance contracts even more complex, esoteric, and inscrutable than they are already.

In any event, the proposed definition of "explosion" is not only narrow, but weirdly narrow. It seems to exclude the explosion of an atomic bomb, since a nuclear reaction is not a form of combustion or a chemical reaction, at least in the usual senses of these words. It would certainly exclude volcanic explosions, as well as the "explosion" of a tire caused by a blowout, the explosion of a melon caused by a bullet, and, to take an example very close to home, the explosion of a boiler as a result of the failure of a valve to open. All these are commonplace examples of the use of the word "explosion" in ordinary speech. None involves stretching the ordinary meaning. And likewise a blast that blows 28 tons of steel and concrete more than 200 feet away is the ordinary person's idea of an explosion, whatever the precise cause of the explosion. The Hartford policy does not define the word or scatter any clues that it is being used in other than its normal sense; even the engineering firm that Stone hired to investigate the accident called it an explosion--a "Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion (BLEVE) of a large, steam-pressurized vessel."

And Stone has cited no case that impresses an artificial definition on the term. The case law, fatally to Stone on this issue, gives the word "explosion" when it appears without a definition in an insurance contract its ordinary-language meaning. Pre-Cast Concrete Products, Inc. v. Home Ins. Co., 417 F.2d 1323 (7th Cir.1969) (discussing and applying Illinois law); Lever Bros. Co. v. Atlas Assurance Co., 131 F.2d 770, 775-76 (7th Cir.1942); American Casualty Co. v. Myrick, 304 F.2d 179, 182-83 (5th Cir.1962). Stone's argument is at root that if a term is not defined in an insurance contract, the insured can impress any definition on it that will establish coverage. "You wrote it, you lose" is not the insurance law of Illinois.

It is a slightly closer question whether the pulp digester is "of a kind" listed in the list of objects that are excepted from the exclusion of accidents caused by explosions, that is, that are covered by the boiler and machinery policy. Clearly the pulp digester is not any of the listed "objects." It is closest to a steam boiler, because it employs steam under pressure. But a steam boiler creates steam by boiling water. In the pulp digester the steam is generated outside and fed into the digester; the digester does not create steam. Its function and mode of operation are thus completely different from those of a steam boiler. In engineering lingo, the steam boiler is a "fired pressure vessel," the pulp digester an "unfired pressure vessel." Had the pipe that carried the steam to the digester exploded, the explosion would have been covered by...