## Facts

- Two North Dakota painters, Parnel Plante and Mark Sandness, were seriously injured in a July 2, 1987 basement explosion in Mandan, North Dakota while using paint manufactured and sold by Columbia Paint Company, Inc.
- The painters filed tort actions against Columbia alleging product-caused injuries.
- Plante (joined by his wife and child) filed a declaratory-judgment action against Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, Columbia’s liability insurer, to determine available coverage; Sandness and his family intervened.
- Hartford’s comprehensive general liability policy promised to pay sums Columbia became legally obligated to pay as damages because of bodily injury or property damage caused by an “occurrence.”
- “Occurrence” was defined as an accident (including continuous or repeated exposure) resulting in bodily injury or property damage “neither expected nor intended from the standpoint of the insured.”
- An endorsement set limits at $1,000,000 “each occurrence” and $1,000,000 “aggregate” for specified coverage.
- Columbia was an Idaho corporation with business operations in multiple states; it obtained the Hartford policy through a Washington insurance agent, and the policy was delivered to Columbia in Washington.
- The parties disputed whether Washington or North Dakota law governed interpretation of the policy, because the choice affected whether the explosion would be treated as a single occurrence (one $1,000,000 limit) or multiple occurrences (potentially multiple $1,000,000 limits).

## Issues

1. Whether North Dakota or Washington law governs interpretation of Hartford’s liability policy issued to Columbia under North Dakota conflict-of-laws principles.
2. Whether the policy should be construed under the governing law to apply a single per-occurrence limit or multiple per-occurrence limits for claims arising from the explosion.

## Decision

- The North Dakota Supreme Court reversed the district court’s summary judgment that applied North Dakota law.
- The court held that, under North Dakota’s significant-contacts/center-of-gravity conflicts approach, Washington law governs the Hartford–Columbia insurance contract.
- The case was remanded for entry of judgment consistent with applying Washington law to interpret the policy and its occurrence limits.

## Legal Principles

- North Dakota determines the governing law for an insurance contract by evaluating significant contacts (center-of-gravity), including contract negotiation and delivery, the parties’ business locations, the structure and territorial reach of the policy, and the location of the insured risk.
- For a policy written to cover multistate operations, the insured risk is not confined to the forum state merely because the accident occurred there; the place of injury does not control contract interpretation.
- In selecting governing law for a multistate policy, courts consider party expectations and the desirability of uniform interpretation of a single policy rather than applying different state laws based on where a loss happens to occur.

## Conclusion

Because the liability policy was procured through a Washington agent, delivered in Washington, and written to cover Columbia’s multistate operations, Washington had the most significant relationship to the insurance contract, requiring application of Washington law to the policy’s occurrence-based limits and related coverage questions.


Plante v. Columbia Paint Co., 494 N.W.2d 140 (N.D. 1992)