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Practice Areas | Insurance Defense & Coverage

Our firm has long been retained by insurance underwriters to defend businesses and individuals on a wide array of liability claims. Many years ago, London underwriters retained the firm in one of Oregon's worst mass torts: the Roseburg explosion. On the morning of August 7, 1959, an explosion of a dynamite truck in downtown Roseburg left 13 people dead, more than 125 injured, and eight blocks of downtown Roseburg in shambles. A fire in the downtown area spread to the parked truck, which caught fire and then exploded. Lawyers in the firm resolved the case on behalf of the dynamite company by taking the unusual step of filing a Bill of Peace.

The firm's work on behalf of insurance underwriters in complex tort cases has continued to the present. Over four decades after the Roseburg explosion, members of the firm helped to obtain a favorable settlement of one of Oregon's largest and most complex construction defect cases.

More recently, the firm has been retained to defend a wide range of cases, ranging from motor vehicle claims to major aircraft accidents, as well as construction disputes, professional liability and more. The firm's aviation defense practice has encompassed everything from small airplane and helicopter hull damage claims to crashes causing catastrophic injury and cases involving large jet aircraft.

The firm also represents insurers on coverage matters, providing coverage advice and representing insurers in coverage litigation. This work has included matters for both domestic and London market insurers, aviation coverage issues, pollution and mass tort coverage. Our clients include primary insurers, sureties, excess insurers, reinsurers, insurance company liquidators and state guaranty associations.

Among the clients we have been privileged to represent in recent years are the following: Underwriters at Lloyds; CGU North Pacific Insurance Company; St. Paul Travelers; CNA Re; St. Paul Re; U.S. Liability Insurance Company; Associated Aviation Underwriters; U.S. Aviation Underwriters; Old Republic Surety Co.; Terra Nova Insurance Company; Gerling Konzern; Generali Insurance; and the Oregon Insurance Guaranty Association.

Our firm has obtained favorable reported appellate decisions in the following insurance coverage and defense cases, among others: Liberty Northwest Insurance Corp. v. Oregon Insurance Guaranty Association, 206 Or App 102, 136 P3d 49 (Or App 2006); Schmidt v. Underwriters at Lloyd’s of London, 191 Or App 340, 82 P3d 649 (Or App 2004); Bird v. Norpac Foods, Inc., 325 Or 55, 934 P2d 382 (Or 1997); Hampton Tree Farms, Inc. v. Jewett, 320 Or 599, 892 P2d 683 (Or 1995); Carrier v. Hicks, 316 Or 341, 851 P2d 581 (Or 1993).

• Successful defense of an excess insurer who was sued, along with 17 other insurers, for coverage arising from a corporate insured's settlement of a mass tort class action.
• Obtained favorable settlements for insurers in Archdiocese of Oregon abuse cases.