Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani partner Chris Haselhoff and Senior Counsel Summerly Kulik successfully defended a summary judgment victory on behalf of a national excess workers’ insurance carrier in an insurance coverage dispute. The insurance policy at issue in this case was a Specific Excess Worker’s Compensation Policy. The plaintiff originally filed suit against its Excess Insurer requesting a declaration that the insurer indemnify plaintiff for all benefits it paid or would pay as part of an employee’s 1993 worker’s compensation claim. The plaintiff argued that the employee’s claim was the result of one occurrence under the applicable Policy, and subject to excess coverage. Conversely, Gordon & Rees argued that, pursuant to the Policy, the employee’s injuries were the result of multiple occurrences, each of which carried its own self-insured retention amount, none of which were met, so coverage was not triggered.
A primary dispute in the case centered on whether underlying primary worker’s compensation standards and terms (like recurrence and aggravation), which are governed by the Pennsylvania Worker’s Compensation Act, should be read into the excess worker’s compensation policy. Gordon & Rees successfully maintained that the unambiguous Excess Policy language controlled, and that the plaintiff was improperly applying the primary workers compensation terms into the policy where they did not otherwise exist. The court held that the policy language was unambiguous and controlled, and did not include the primary worker’s compensation concepts that Plaintiff relied on. The Third Circuit afformed summary judgment in the insurer’s favor on all counts.
Haselhoff and Kulik are based in the firm's Pittsburgh office, practicing primarily in the Commercial Litigation, Real Estate and Energy practice groups.