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Course Details

Course Information
  • smart_display Format

    On-Demand

  • signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level

  • work Practice Area

    Insurance

Date & Time
  • event Date

    Tuesday, February 28, 2023

  • schedule Time

    1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT

  • timer Program Length

    90 minutes

Credit Information

  • This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.

$297.00
CLE
ALL

This CLE webinar will instruct insurance litigators on how to plead allegations that fall within a policy's coverage grant but outside the policy's exclusions when alleging the underlying claims that trigger coverage and the duty to defend. The program will identify mistakes that can get complaints dismissed although the underlying facts of the claim are within coverage. The panel will also speak to the issue of "inartful" pleading that attempts to trigger the duty to defend an excluded claim.

Faculty

R. Brent Cooper
Shareholder
Cooper & Scully, PC

Mr. Cooper focuses his practice on commercial litigation, insurance litigation, and appellate practice. He has had significant experience representing clients before federal and state trial and appellate courts. He has tried numerous cases covering areas of business litigation, construction litigation, catastrophic personal injuries, complex litigation, intellectual property, constitutional and business tort cases.

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Michael Gerstle
Founding Partner
Gerstle Snelson, LLP

Mr. Gerstle provides advice, counsel and representation to clients throughout the State of Texas regarding many different types of projects. He has advised clients regarding federal, municipal, industrial, commercial, healthcare, multi-family, and single family residential projects in all the main metropolitan areas and many of the smaller towns and counties in the State.In addition to being a licensed attorney, Mr. Gerstle holds a Professional Engineer’s license in the State of New York. He worked as a structural engineer and participated in the design of long-span suspension bridges and hydroelectric power plants. As an engineer, Mr. Gerstle participated in the inspection of construction sites and the monitoring of construction and rehabilitation projects. He also prepared environmental impact and transportation impact studies for private developers and non-profit entities.Mr. Gerstle routinely presents seminars to clients regarding risk management techniques in the construction and design fields. He is a Member of the State Bar of Texas Construction section. Mr. Gerstle has previously held the position of adjunct professor at Texas Wesleyan University, where he taught courses in torts, legal writing, and intellectual property.

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Jason Kosek
Shareholder
Anderson Kill

Mr. Kosek is a shareholder in Anderson Kill's New York office. He assists clients in a broad array of issues, including insurance coverage, regulatory, FCPA, labor law, negligence, nuisance, trespass, products liability and breach of contract, with a focus on construction and regulatory matters.

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Description

Coverage turns almost entirely on how the underlying actions are pleaded. Thus, insurance litigators want to discover available insurance policies and then draft pleadings--whether plaintiff or defense--that trigger the available coverage and the duty to defend.

Problems arise because the facts crucial to establishing coverage often have no bearing on liability. Thus, attorneys can plead too little, leaving out facts demonstrating coverage and giving the insurer ample ground to argue it has no duty to defend the policyholder.

Attorneys can also plead too much and end up pleading "outside of coverage." The complaint may contain causes of action that are covered, but the facts alleged only support a non-covered or excluded claim. Although pleading "outside of coverage" is not always fatal to the duty to defend or to coverage, it can create a host of unnecessary complications and dampen insurer involvement.

Listen as this experienced panel instructs insurance litigators how to plead covered claims and how to avoid mistakes that can cause a complaint to be dismissed even when the underlying facts of the claim are within coverage.

Outline

  1. Benefits of triggering duty to defend
  2. Strategies for identifying available policies
  3. Identifying and pleading facts needed to trigger coverage
  4. Avoiding triggering exclusions
  5. Remedies for "under" and "over" pleading
  6. "Inartful" pleading and uncovered claims

Benefits

The panel will review these and other critical issues:

  • Are there ever situations where a policyholder would want to avoid coverage?
  • Are there ever situations where the plaintiff would want to avoid coverage?
  • What happens if the complaint fails to allege undisputed facts that, had they been alleged, would have triggered the insurer's duty to defend?
  • If an extrinsic fact is relevant to determining coverage, but not liability, can it be considered by an insurer when deciding the duty to defend?