Industrial manufacturer—Illinois trial and appellate wins secure hundreds of millions in liability coverage

Achieved significant victories on behalf of the subsidiary of a Fortune 500 industrial technology company seeking coverage from umbrella and excess liability insurers for losses arising from thousands of underlying claims alleging the client’s equipment exposed plaintiffs to air-borne asbestos dust. Successfully defended a trial court win on appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court which affirmed the finding that “noncumulation” clauses were not implicated in the dispute – a ruling that preserved the insurance limits available to our client by many millions of dollars. Before the same appellate court, successfully argued for the reversal of the trial court’s finding that all of the client’s asbestos losses arose out of a single occurrence. In a published decision, the court agreed with our definition of “occurrence,” restoring the coverage available to the client under multi-year policies. The Illinois Supreme court later denied the insurers’ petition for leave to appeal, cementing our earlier wins and preserving the client’s insurance limits.