Commercial Kitchen Waste Is A Pollutant
The United States District Court for Colorado held that used cooking oil and other nontoxic restaurant wastes are “pollutants” under the pollution exclusion clause in a restaurant owner’s commercial general liability policy. Mountain States Mutual Casualty Co. v. Kirkpatrick, 2007 WL 2506640 (D. Colo. Aug. 30, 2007). The circumstances leading to this broad definition of “pollutant” began with two workers alleging that they were injured in October 2003 while cleaning sewers located near the Hog’s Breath Saloon & Restaurant in Otero County, Colorado. The workers claimed that Hog’s Breath discharged cooking oil, grease, fat and other food by-products directly into the sewer in violation of several city ordinances. The workers further claimed that nearly five feet of oil and grease had accumulated in the manhole closest to the Hog’s Breath sewer connection. The accumulation of oil and grease allegedly produced hydrogen sulfide gas that was trapped in the manhole and in air pockets within the grease. Both workers were overcome when sewer cleaning began. Both survived but then sued in state district court for among other things, negligence and negligence per se.
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