Lynndon K. Groff

Lynndon Groff represents major insurers and reinsurers in complex coverage, bad faith, and insurance and reinsurance contract disputes. His practice encompasses a variety of insurance and reinsurance claims, including matters involving environmental pollution, long-term exposure to hazardous substances, and other injuries and property damage in numerous jurisdictions. He regularly deals with a number of issues – including but not limited to trigger of coverage, number of occurrences, allocation, application of policy exclusions, timely notice, the duty to defend, claim characterization, and choice of law – under several types of policies and reinsurance contracts, including low- and high-layer occurrence-based, claims-made, and Bermuda Form policies and related reinsurance.

• Advises insurer and reinsurer clients on cutting edge issues involving PFAS (“forever chemicals”) under several types of insurance policies, including in coverage litigation, arbitration, and bankruptcy proceedings in multiple jurisdictions

• Achieved summary judgment in Ohio state court that term per occurrence limits rather than annual per occurrence limits totaling tens of millions of dollars applied to underlying pollution claims

• Defended commercial general liability insurer in high-profile coverage litigation in Delaware state court in which insurers obtained summary judgment that underlying false arrest claims against major vehicle rental company constituted separate occurrences, thereby triggering only the coverage in place at the time of each arrest at issue

• Represented major insurer in coverage litigation in New York state court involving significant environmental liabilities at several manufactured gas plant sites throughout Brooklyn and Long Island, which has resulted in favorable rulings with respect to issues of first impression under New York law

• Authored winning portion of opposition to insured’s motion for summary judgment that insurer had “immediate” duty to defend putative mass tort class action before insured established timely notice 

• Successfully defended commercial general liability insurer in Mississippi state court against high-value complex environmental coverage claims in connection with historical electrical transformer-manufacturing operations 

• Obtained summary judgment in New Jersey state court denying defense and indemnity coverage for construction defect claims on basis of enumerated policy classifications
• Evaluated coverage for claims brought under dozens of complex policies and drafted related denial and reservation of rights letters on insurers’ behalf