{"id":4327,"date":"2026-04-25T17:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T17:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/texas-appellate-court-applies-pollution-and-contamination-exclusion-to-bar-covid-19-business-interruption-coverage-under-property-policy-wiley-rein-llp\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T17:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T17:45:12","slug":"texas-appellate-court-applies-pollution-and-contamination-exclusion-to-bar-covid-19-business-interruption-coverage-under-property-policy-wiley-rein-llp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/texas-appellate-court-applies-pollution-and-contamination-exclusion-to-bar-covid-19-business-interruption-coverage-under-property-policy-wiley-rein-llp\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Appellate Court Applies Pollution and Contamination Exclusion to Bar COVID-19 Business Interruption Coverage Under Property Policy | Wiley Rein LLP"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"html-view-content\">\n<p>The Texas Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District affirmed summary judgment under Texas law holding that a commercial property policy\u2019s \u201cpollution and contamination exclusion\u201d barred coverage for COVID 19 business interruption losses. Houston Livestock Show &amp; Rodeo, Inc. v. Nat\u2019l Fire &amp; Marine Ins. Co., 2026 WL 873050 (Tex. App. Mar. 31, 2026).<\/p>\n<p>The insured nonprofit entity annually operates a major livestock show and rodeo at a county\u2011owned sports complex. After a patron tested positive for COVID\u201119 in March 2020, local public health authorities issued a property\u2011specific quarantine order that prohibited access to the complex, forcing the event\u2019s early closure. The nonprofit sought business interruption coverage as an additional insured under a commercial property policy issued to the property owner. In the coverage action, the insured pursued coverage only under the policy\u2019s civil authority and impaired ingress\/egress coverage extensions, arguing that the policy\u2019s exclusions did not apply to these coverage extensions.<\/p>\n<p>The policy contained a \u201cPollution, Contamination, and Debris Removal Exclusion Endorsement\u201d that included a \u201cPollution and Contamination Exclusion\u201d stating that the policy \u201cdoes not cover loss or damage caused by, resulting from, contributed to or made worse by\u201d the release or dispersal of \u201cCONTAMINANTS or POLLUTANTS.\u201d The endorsement defined \u201cCONTAMINANTS or POLLUTANTS\u201d to include \u201cany solid, liquid, gaseous or thermal irritant or contaminant . . . which after its release can cause or threaten human health . . . including but not limited to, bacteria, fungi, [and] virus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The court rejected that the insured\u2019s interpretation that the Pollution and Contamination Exclusion did not apply to the coverage extensions. Reading the policy as a whole, the court held that nothing in the coverage extensions displaced the Pollution and Contamination Exclusion\u2019s express statement that it applied to all coverage provided under the policy. The court ultimately concluded that, under the Policy\u2019s unambiguous language, the Pollution and Contamination Exclusion barred coverage for the insured\u2019s claims and granted summary judgment in favor of the insurer.<\/p>\n<p>[View source.]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Texas Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District affirmed summary judgment under Texas law holding that a commercial property policy\u2019s \u201cpollution and contamination exclusion\u201d barred coverage for COVID 19 business interruption losses. Houston Livestock Show &amp; Rodeo, Inc. v. Nat\u2019l Fire &amp; Marine Ins. Co., 2026 WL 873050 (Tex. App. Mar. 31, 2026). The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3090,3091,1888,277,3092,852,292,1679,1917,1260,2132,920,1275,1649,2796,190,2795],"class_list":["post-4327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-appellate","tag-applies","tag-bar","tag-business","tag-contamination","tag-court","tag-coverage","tag-covid19","tag-exclusion","tag-interruption","tag-llp","tag-policy","tag-pollution","tag-property","tag-rein","tag-texas","tag-wiley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}