Cpc International, Inc. v. Northbrook Excess and Surplus Insurance Company

LYNCH, Circuit Judge.

An accident in 1974 involving a railroad tank car and a chemical storage tank has led to years of environmental litigation and, ultimately, to this court’s consideration of those events almost a quarter century later. In June 1974, an engineer of the Providence and Worcester Railroad Company moved a group of railroad tank cars while one car was still attached to a chemical storage tank at a manufacturing facility in Cumberland, Rhode Island. The facility is located on the banks of the Blackstone River. A hole was torn in the bottom of the tank and the contents, over 6,200…