In the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Liberty Mutual has successfully argued the application of a total pollution exclusion to a claim by Central Crude, Inc. for costs related to environmental remediation and litigation defense. The case is called Central Crude, Inc. v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 51 F.4th 648 (5th Cir. 2022). 

Central Crude found an oil leak on its Paradis, Louisiana property in January 2007; the leak also extended to a neighboring piece of property owned by Chevron. Though Central Crude paid a contractor more than $1 million to fix the problem, the spill was not entirely remediated. 

Central Crude filed a claim for the remediation costs under its CGL policy with Liberty Mutual the same year the spill was discovered, but the claim was ultimately denied under the total pollution exclusion. In January 2008, Columbia Gulf Transmission Company sued Central Crude and other entities connected to the oil spill. Though the suit claimed the spill itself physically occurred on Chevron's tract, not Central Crude's, the spill's origins had to have come from either Central Crude's or Chevron's oil wells. When Central Crude sought defense costs from Liberty Mutual, the claim was again denied on the basis of the total pollution exclusion.