I read a lot of coverage cases. And when I do, I always take note of the lawyers involved. For years, I have been seeing the name Robert Chemers, of Chicago’s Pretzel & Stouffer, over and over and over listed as counsel for the insurer. Out of curiosity, I did a Lexis search and discovered that Chemers represented a party in a staggering 650 or so opinions (not all coverage, but mostly). I don’t believe that there is a coverage lawyer in America credited with so many. I was delighted, and flattered, to learn that the Second City lawyer (Cubs over Sox) is a long-time Coverage Opinions reader.
I reached out to Chemers to ask him to do an interview for CO. He graciously agreed. I had to get to the bottom of how he’s been involved in all those cases.
Chemers’s remarkable stats read like the back of an Ernie Banks baseball card. He has handled over 900 appeals, including over 150 in the Supreme Court of Illinois, of which 52 involve opinions (20 involving coverage), 65 in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and hundreds in the Appellate Court of Illinois, with the majority being coverage-related. He has astonishingly handled coverage cases in 71 of Illinois’s 102 counties. And Chemers plays in away games too, having handled cases in the Supreme Courts of Wisconsin, Ohio, Maine, Mississippi and Indiana, as well as in numerus states’ intermediate appellate courts and federal courts of appeal.
For the 69-year old coverage lawyer, it all started at Pretzel & Stouffer in 1976. “I was 24 and right out of Indiana University School of Law,” Chemers tells me. “I initially worked with Joseph B. Lederleitner, then a senior partner, who was my mentor. He was a renowned coverage and appeals practitioner.”
Lederleitner took the reins off his mentee early. In less than a year, the nascent lawyer found himself arguing before the Appellate Court of Illinois in Kaiserman v. Bright, a case involving the standard for recovery for emotional injuries caused by negligent conduct.
Chemers recalls his debut and the comment from one of the three panel members: “This must not be a tough appeal if Mr. Lederleitner isn’t arguing.” Chemers won the case.
Lederleitner was a tough critic. “I submitted my first brief to Joe for review,” Chemers reminiscences. “The plaintiff had appealed a $600 verdict, in an auto case, claiming that it was inadequate. That’s how it was in 1976.”
“Joe looked at the document and told me that the only aspect that could be salvaged was the title -- Brief of Appellee. He pulled off the cover page, dropped the rest in the trashcan and told me to focus and do it again. For years I saved that first page, however, I no longer have it. I won that appeal.”
“Joe was strictly business,” Chemers says. “I worked with him for three years before I knew he had eight children. I greatly respected him, and, in fact, my oldest son has Joseph for his middle name.”
With an experience like that, I ask Chemers what he was like as a mentor when that time came. “I told myself that I would never treat associates the way I was treated,” Chemers explains. “And I have adhered to that approach.” Chemers says that his own style is to mark up a brief in red ink and then discuss the reasons for his edits. “The more briefs prepared by the associate, the less red ink, as style sets in. My style not only prevails, but is required.”
So what’s behind Chemers being involved in so-many cases? Does he specialize in representing litigious insurers?, I joke.
The answer is quite simple, he explains: “Illinois is a litigious state and insurance coverage issues are a big part of litigation. The focus of the firm has always been on litigation, and litigation begets coverage work and coverage work and litigation beget appeals.”
He also gives credit to the Land of Lincoln’s appellate court rules. “In Illinois,” Chemers explains, “our appellate court is not bound by its own decisions, and often a panel issues a decision which conflicts with another panel’s decision. It is up to the Supreme Court of Illinois, if it decides to exercise its discretionary jurisdiction, to resolve the conflict. If the Supreme Court does not allow leave to appeal, the conflict continues and litigants continue to appeal and attempt to chip away at the conflict by arguing that one line of cases is better reasoned than the other. And so on and so on, and decisions proliferate. Not just in the coverage arena, but in the full spectrum of appealable issues.”
Having handled so many appeals, especially before the Illinois Supreme Court, Chemers has of course had a hand in many significant cases, including Waste Mgt. Inc. v. International Surplus Lines Ins. Co. (1991), which recognized the common interest doctrine; Pekin Ins. Co. v. Wilson (2010), adopting a narrow exception to the four-corners doctrine; Cincinnati Cos. v. West Am. Ins. Co. (1998), concluding that a tender is not required where the insurer has knowledge of the suit; Standard Mutual Ins. Co. v. Lay (2013), involving the sufficiency of a reservation of rights letter; ISBA Mutual Ins. Co. v. Tuzzolino & Terpinas (2015), addressing rescission and the innocent insured rule; and Kakos v. Butler (2016), which struck an amendment to the Code of Civil Procedure as unconstitutional which mandated 6-person juries in civil trials.
“These cases have significantly changed Illinois law,” Chemers says, “and it is rewarding to have been involved in these frequently cited decisions.”
Chemers can’t help chuckling about the client who refused to pay for legal research: “We will not pay your firm to review your own cases.”
Chemers’s coverage practice evolved over the years, coming to include all issues imaginable under a long list of property and casualty policies. “Whatever was the coverage issue du jour,” Chemers says, “we handled it.”
“The approach to an appeal, coverage or non-coverage, is the same,” Chemers says. “A thorough review of the record and framing the issues in a cogent and convincing manner so that the desired result may be obtained.”
Chemers recalls a two-week period in 1987 when he argued two insurance coverage appeals in the 7th Circuit. “During the first argument, Judge Posner commented that the policy was ‘the most ambiguous policy I ever read.’ Two weeks later, during my argument, Judge Posner commented that the policy was ‘the most ambiguous policy I ever read.’ This caused me to state that the policy was clear and unambiguous, and, further, at worst it would be tied with another as the most ambiguous. I reminded His Honor about his comment two weeks earlier and then I named that appeal. The clerks told me after the argument that it was the first time they saw Judge Posner laugh on the bench. I lost the first appeal, but won the second.”
Chemers observes that he is one of very few attorneys who can state that they argued the same appeal twice. “I argued an appeal to the Supreme Court of Illinois in January 1978. Then, one of the seven Justices died. The Court must have been tied 3 to 3. After a new Justice was named, I argued the case again.” Chemers tells me that he lost that one 4-3.
There is an occupational hazard of handling cases outside of Chicago, Chemers says. “There are a number of counties in Illinois that have fewer than ten registered attorneys,” Chemers tells me. “The first question that a Chicago attorney gets is a tough one – ‘what’s wrong with the local bar?’ When we lose in those venues, we have frequently prevailed on appeal.”
Chemers says that he has no retirement plans in his future so long as he continues to enjoy good health and the challenges provided on a daily basis by a busy coverage, coverage litigation and appellate practice. “I thrive on those challenges,” he says, “and look forward to further success in my field. I work at a pace which would cause a younger person to grow weary, but I have always maintained a strong work ethic.”
Chemers calls himself an “avid but not very good golfer.” Nonetheless, he has two holes-in-one to his credit. Proof, he says, of the adage that “even a blind squirrel can find an acorn.” The aces came in 1996 and 1998. “I thought they would occur every two years, but I’m now working on a 23-year dry spell.”
After 45 years Robert Chemers has seen a lot. But he tells me that the basic practice of law has not changed for his firm: “Our clients still want quality work for a reasonable price. Some still want to win and others want resolution if it can be achieved reasonably to get the file closed.”
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