There is likely no more complex subject for coverage attorneys than environmental matters. Environmental cases involve long-tail liability arising from latent exposure to an environmental harm that may not manifest itself for years or decades.
The New Jersey Supreme Court has struggled with this issue. In Owens-Illinois v. United Ins. Co., 138 N.J. 437 (1994), the court addressed long-tail coverage in the context of an asbestos case. There, the court unabashedly admitted that traditional concepts of legal causation, developed in the age of Newtonian physics, were difficult to apply to environmental harm. The limitations of science in this area, noted the court, only compounded the limitations of the law.