Bradford Oil Co., v. Stonington Insurance Co., 2011 VT 108 (Dooley, J. )

This case considers who should bear responsibility for the cost of cleaning up petroleum contamination caused by releases from a gas station’s underground storage tanks. The controversy in this appeal is between the State of Vermont, which runs the Vermont Petroleum Cleanup Fund (VPCF) and Stonington Insurance Co. (Stonington), which insured Bradford Oil, the owner of the underground storage tanks, for approximately a three-and-a-half-year period. The State appeals from the trial court’s judgment limiting Stonington’s liability to a 4/27 share of past and future cleanup costs. On appeal, the State argues: (1) this Court’s application of time-on-the-risk allocation in Towns v. Northern Security Insurance Co., 2008 VT 98, 184 Vt. 322, 964 A.2d 1150, does not preclude joint and several liability under all standard occurrence-based policy language; (2) the circumstances here, including the reasonable expectations of the insured and the equity and policy considerations, support imposing joint and several liability on Stonington for all of the State’s VPCF expenditures; and (3) even if time-on-the-risk allocation would otherwise be appropriate, Stonington is not entitled to such allocation because it has failed to show sufficient facts to apply this allocation method in the present case.

We conclude that Towns does control here, and we are unconvinced by the State’s reasonable expectations, equity, and policy arguments to distinguish this recent decision. Accordingly, we affirm.