The underlying fight pits Travelers Casualty and Surety Company, formerly known as Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, against Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC over whether Travelers must defend Syngenta in more than 10,000 personal-injury lawsuits. Those suits allege that plaintiffs suffered bodily harm from exposure to paraquat, Syngenta's herbicide product.
The coverage dispute turns on two groups of policies Travelers issued to Syngenta. Three policies in effect from September 1974 to 1977 contain a pollution-exclusion clause. Three later policies, covering September 1977 to September 1980, omit that exclusion but include language Travelers argued requires defense costs to erode the limits of liability.
On January 30, 2026, the Superior Court granted Syngenta's motion for partial summary judgment and partially denied Travelers' cross-motion. The court held that the pollution exclusion did not relieve Travelers of its duty to defend under the earlier policies, construing the exclusion to apply only to traditional environmental pollution. The court did agree with Travelers that reimbursement of defense costs reduces the total funds available under the later policies.
Travelers sought certification of three rulings for interlocutory appeal: the pollution-exclusion interpretation, the court's refusal to consider extrinsic evidence in assessing the duty to defend, and the court's denial of further discovery before ruling on summary judgment. The Superior Court denied certification on February 26, 2026, and Travelers appealed.
The Delaware Supreme Court, in an order decided April 20, 2026, and issued by Chief Justice Seitz and Justices LeGrow and Griffiths, agreed with the Superior Court's conclusion. The court concluded that the strict standards for certification under Supreme Court Rule 42(b) were not met, that exceptional circumstances warranting interlocutory review did not exist, and that the potential benefits of such review did not outweigh the inefficiency, disruption, and probable costs of an interlocutory appeal.
A key factor in both courts' analyses was that the pollution-exclusion question affects only the first group of policies. Regardless of how an appellate court might rule on that issue, the parties would still need to litigate coverage under the later policies, which contain no pollution exclusion — meaning an interlocutory appeal would not terminate the litigation.
The case now returns to the Superior Court for further proceedings. The Superior Court case is docketed as C.A. No. N21C-05-143; the Delaware Supreme Court docket number is 88, 2026.