THE MAYERSON FIRM PLLC
Environmental, Pollution and Toxic-Tort Coverage
Marc Mayerson has been at the forefront for policyholders in recovering from their insurers for liabilities associated with environmental contamination, pollution, and toxic torts. We have secured recovery for defense costs regarding CERCLA administrative proceedings and for the defense of natural-resources damages claims brought by federal and state governments.
Since the late 1980s, the environmental coverage wars concerned questions of "damages" and clean-up costs, pollution exclusions, owned-property exclusions, expected-intended, trigger and allocation, administrative proceedings as suits, and insurance-company bad faith; For more than 30 years, Marc has litigated all of these issues in multiple trial and appellate courts in state and federal court throughout the country.
Our successful efforts to obtain coverage have involved general liability policies, environmental impairment liability, pollution legal liability, and other policies. The underlying claims have involved industrial contamination on site, off-site disposal sites, acid mine drainage, DDT, specialty chemicals, solvents, petroleum products, VOCs and airborne contaminants, and worker-exposure claims.
We are adept at working with defense counsel for such large loss claims, including safeguarding privilege and coordinating the description of the problem at issue in a manner that both best serves the defense of the client and maximizes the potential insurance recovery. In this regard, we have secured orders of specific performance of the duty to defend by insurers, requiring contemporaneous payment of defense costs, while precluding litigation in the coverage case of disputed facts at issue in the underlying liability case.
Marc Mayerson has written and presented extensively on the various procedural and substantive legal issues involved, including for leading treatises and handbooks on environmental and toxic-tort litigation and related insurance-coverage issues.