Insurance coverage/bad faith litigation
Mr. Pappas has extensive insurance coverage litigation experience, beginning with his Williams, Kastner & Gibbs days.
In his early years, Mr. Pappas was usually on the insurer's side, representing carriers on a wide variety of claims, such as the following: A. A nursery's claim against its comprehensive general liability insurer seeking a defense and indemnity for a farmer's lawsuit against the nursery over the deaths of 45,000 apple trees sold by the nursery.
B. A county treasurer's claim against his county-provided umbrella liability policy seeking indemnity for the county's claim against the treasurer for losing $10,000,000 of the county's money in a Ponzi scheme.
C. A manufacturer's claim against its comprehensive general liability policies seeking payment of CERCLA pollution clean-up expenses ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
D. Many of these cases also involved negligence claims against insurance agents and brokers. Mr. Pappas also has represented insurance agencies in such claims.
More recently, Mr. Pappas has primarily represented policy holders against their insurers. In 1993, Mr. Pappas was co-chair at the trial of West America Insurance Company v. Freeman, representing Mark Freeman, a contractor who had developed a home in Palo Alto which later developed stucco cracks. Having been sued by the owner, Mr. Freeman tendered the case to his insurer for defense. His insurer settled the case in two parts, first what it believed to be the Acovered@ part, and second what it alleged it thought to be the Anon-covered@ part. The insurer then sued Mr. Freeman seeking reimbursement of the Anon-covered@ settlement, and allocation of the fees it had paid Mr. Freeman's lawyer. Mr. Freeman countersued the insurer for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing (Abad faith@), noting that the insurer's own evidence pointed to the owner's landscaper being responsible for the stucco cracks. The jury awarded Mr. Freeman $13,300,000, including a $12,000,000 punitive damage award. The appeals court upheld this verdict. Since then, Mr. Pappas has successfully represented, among others, a homeowner whose insurer denied coverage under the Abusiness pursuits@ exclusion for the drowning death of a neighbor's two-year-old son in the homeowner's swimming pool; and a software reseller whose insurer contested coverage for a liability claimed by Microsoft for allegedly unlawfully reselling MS Office software. The breadth of Mr. Pappas' experience in the realm of insurance coverage and agent and broker liability makes him the right lawyer to review your case. Give him a call today. [Link: contact us.]