Opinion
C.A. No. 00C-01-207
Submitted: October 1, 2001
Decided: October 9, 2001
ORDER GRANTING LEAVE TO APPEAL FROM INTERLOCUTORY ORDERS
The Plaintiffs have made an application pursuant to Rule 42 of the Supreme Court for an order certifying an appeal from ten interlocutory orders of this Court dated September 12, 2001 which granted partial summary judgment in favor of certain insurers on the duty to defend and indemnify Plaintiffs against forty tobacco health-related claims. This Court makes the following findings:
(1) The orders determined a substantial issue by determining there is no duty for the Defendant insurers to defend nor to indemnify Plaintiffs in forty representative underlying actions brought against them throughout the United States.
(2) The orders established legal rights of the parties by declaring there is no insurance coverage under the policies in issue for these representative complaints.
(3) Pursuant to Rule 42(b)(v), considerations of justice would be served by interlocutory review at this time because:
(a) This case involves more than one-hundred liability insurance policies sold to the Plaintiffs (and/or their parent companies) by the thirty-three defendants from 1970 until 2000. The coverage issues for tobacco health-related claims are of first impression and relate to more than one-thousand underlying claims that have arisen in connection with such lawsuits filed against Plaintiffs throughout the United States.
(b) Because of the complexity of the issues and the large number of underlying claims, the Court directed the parties to identify twenty representative complaints per side for purposes of motions for summary judgment on the duty to defend. The parties did so and the Court has ruled on each of these representative actions which will be the law of the case for the remaining claims.
(c) Because of the representative nature of the forty underlying actions, a review by the Supreme Court at this time may effectively terminate the litigation, or provide a potential framework for the resolution of the remaining claims.
For the foregoing reasons, IT IS ORDERED that the Court's orders dated September 12, 2001 are hereby certified to the Supreme Court of the State of Delaware for disposition in accordance with Rule 42 of that Court.