Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani Partner Melissa Brown and Associate Kathryn Siegeltuch obtained a dismissal of all claims against their client, an insurance producer.
The plaintiff, an insurer, brought a subrogation action against the producer to recover funds paid to satisfy a consent judgment in a previous lawsuit that arose from a workplace injury on premises owned by the subrogor. Therein, the plaintiff asserted professional negligence claims against the producer for allegedly failing to obtain insurance that covered the injured worker’s claims against the subrogor as the landlord under its lease agreement with the tenant.
Brown and Siegeltuch filed an early, pre-discovery motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s complaint, arguing that the subrogee-insurer’s claims were precluded by the entire controversy doctrine and, alternatively, that the plaintiff could not demonstrate the producer deviated from its standard of care because the plaintiff acknowledged that the producer promptly responded to a request for proof of coverage by furnishing a Certificate of Insurance that explicitly named the subrogor as an additional insured under its tenant’s policy.
After a full briefing and lengthy oral argument, the court agreed with the GRSM team’s arguments and granted the defendant’s motion in full, dismissing all of the claims against the producer and prohibiting the plaintiff from filing an amended complaint.