Overview
For the second consecutive year, Steptoe’s Insurance and Reinsurance practice has been named a Law360 Insurance Group of the Year. In an article published on January 28, the editors highlight a string of rulings secured by Steptoe in 2014 that helped clarify case law on important issues including bad faith claims, pollution exclusions, and contingent business interruption.
In one of those cases, a Steptoe team led by partner Frank Winston convinced the Eleventh Circuit to affirm two decisions for Travelers that the insurer had no duty to indemnify Alabama Gas Corp. for approximately $4 million it spent in remediating its former manufactured gas plant site in Huntsville, Alabama, because all of the contamination at the site, for which the gas company was liable, took place before the effective date of Travelers' insurance policies. The appeals court also affirmed dismissal of Alagasco’s bad faith claims against Travelers, finding that Travelers had a “debatable reason” for denying Alagasco’s request for a defense against the EPA claims at issue at the time it made its coverage determination, and that Travelers did not “constructively deny” Alagasco’s claim.
Steptoe insurance practice head Harry Lee tells Law360 that the ruling was probably the most important and wide-ranging secured by the group in the last year, given that rulings in the Eleventh Circuit have a significant impact on the southeastern United States and the insurance coverage law there.
“[Bad faith claims are] the way to expand beyond simple compensatory damages … and so they're attractive to plaintiffs’ lawyers for that purpose … it's not that ‘hard’ to throw in a bad faith claim and to really up the ante, and from the insurance carrier’s point of view, it’s a flying missile aimed at you,” Mr. Lee says.
Law360’s Practice Groups of the Year awards, now in the fifth year, are given to firms “that came through for their clients in 2014, sealing the big deals and winning the high-stakes suits.” A panel of editors reviewed a record 683 submissions to select winners across 26 practice areas. Winners were selected based on the significance of the litigation wins or deals worked on, the size and complexity of the litigation wins or deals worked on, and the number of significant, large, or complex deals the group worked on or lawsuits the group won in 2014.
The full profile on Steptoe's insurance practice can be read at Law360 (subscription required).