NEWS

Cooper & Elliott is pleased to announce that Adam Crowell, former Staff Attorney to the Honorable Richard A. Frye, has joined the firm as an associate. Adam’s experience as a former prosecutor makes him a strong addition to the Cooper & Elliott trial team.

Dealing a setback that one prominent insurance defense firm calls “devasting” to the insurance industry, the Ohio Supreme Court has issued a unanimous decision in favor of our client, the Estate of Jeffrey Heintzelman. In recent years, insurance companies have used a new tactic to prevent injured parties from collecting their damages under the wrongdoer’s insurance policy. It works like this: after an injured party files a lawsuit against the wrongdoer, the wrongdoer’s insurance company files a separate lawsuit to get a court to declare that the insurance policy doesn’t cover the injuries. The insurance company files this separate lawsuit against its own policyholder – the wrongdoer – without telling the injured party, and then reassures its policyholder that the lawsuit is nothing to worry about. After a few weeks, the insurance company gets a judgment declaring that there is no coverage under the insurance policy. Then, after the injured party obtains a verdict against the wrongdoer, the insurance company reveals the hidden decision and refuses to pay the verdict.

With its ruling, the Supreme Court has wisely put an end to this sneaky tactic. The case is Estate of Heintzelman v. Air Experts, Inc., et al., 2010-Ohio-3264.