Peabody Essex Museum, Inc. v. United States Fire Insurance

HOWARD, Chief Judge.

Some decades ago, a substantial oil spill occurred on the Salem, Massachusetts property of plaintiff Peabody Essex Museum (“the Museum”). That pollution eventually migrated to the land of a down gradient neighbor, Heritage Plaza, which discovered the subsurface contamination in 2003. Heritage Plaza notified the Museum in late 2003, and the Museum gave prompt notice to both the state environmental authorities and its insurer, defendant United States Fire Insurance Company (“U.S. Fire”). In 2006, the Museum filed a coverage suit against U.S. Fire and eventually secured a…