Litigation
Success on Appeal for Major Insurer
We successfully represented a major insurance company in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, persuading that court that, contrary to the trial court’s ruling, occupational asbestos exposure is not a work-place “accident,” but instead must be treated as a “disease.” Our firm took over the matter after the trial court had entered a $2.2 million dollar judgment against the insurance company. The trial court had found that asbestos exposure was an “accident” under the applicable insurance policy and that therefore the requirements, applicable only to “diseases,” that claims had to be filed within thirty-six months of the last exposure did not apply. A unanimous Court of Appeals panel reversed and agreed with us that the trial court’s reliance on a case dealing with comprehensive general liability insurance policies was unwarranted and that the trial court instead should have relied on workmen’s compensation law analogies. The Court of Appeals held that had the trial court’s ruling been allowed to stand, there would have been unacceptable inconsistencies between state regulatory requirements and insurance coverage rules. The matter was handled by Mark Aronchick, Sara Staman and Daniel Segal.