Geoffrey B. Fehling

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From business interruption to biometric privacy, the first half of 2021 has already seen its fair share of significant insurance rulings. Law360 recently interviewed Hunton insurance counsel Geoffrey Fehling for an article analyzing the biggest insurance coverage cases and how they have impacted the legal landscape for policyholders and insurers.
Continue Reading Law360 Interviews Hunton Insurance Recovery Counsel Geoffrey Fehling About 2021’s Top Insurance Decisions

A New York appellate court recently held that renewable bio-diesel fuel manufacturer BioEnergy Development Group LLC may pursue tens of millions of dollars in damages from its insurers under two all-risk insurance policies, including amounts in excess of the policy limits, where the insurers refused to pay claims in a timely manner.
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Continue Reading New York Appellate Court Holds Insurers May Suffer Consequences of Delayed Payment of Energy Company Property and Business Interruption Claims

Congratulations to Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP insurance recovery lawyer, Geoffrey Fehling, on his confirmation by the DC Bar Foundation’s Board of Directors to the organization’s Young Lawyers Network Leadership Council.
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Continue Reading Hunton’s Geoffrey Fehling Confirmed to DC Bar Foundation’s Young Lawyers Network Leadership Council

A Florida district court recently held that an insurer wrongfully refused to defend a Miami-based strip club in a lawsuit filed by 17 models claiming that the club used their images to promote its business without their authorization. The insurer was required to defend the club for allegations of defamation under the policy’s personal and advertising coverage even though 16 of the 17 plaintiffs’ claims alleged conduct outside the covered policy period and no plaintiffs brought a cause of action for “defamation.” The decision highlights the broad duty to defend, in Florida and elsewhere, that policyholders should emphasize when pursuing coverage.
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Continue Reading Miami Strip Club Entitled to Coverage for Models’ Defamation Lawsuit

The Seventh Circuit recently withdrew its controversial opinion that broadly interpreted an exclusion in Emmis Communications Corporation’s D&O policy, thereby barring coverage for losses in connection with claims of circumstances “as reported” under Emmis’ other insurance policy. The reversal, while very rare, was the correct result that alleviated concerns about the chilling effect the court’s broad reading of the exclusion may have on policyholders’ decisions to provide notice under all potentially applicable insurance policies.
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Continue Reading Seventh Circuit Withdraws Decision, Affirms Coverage for Emmis Shareholder Lawsuit Despite Notices to Multiple Insurers

In a recent article in the ABA Business Law Section publication Business Law Today, Hunton insurance recovery lawyers Syed Ahmad and Geoffrey Fehling discuss several important D&O insurance coverage issues to consider in M&A transactions. In the article, the authors discuss the intersection of M&A and insurance and how mergers, acquisitions, and other deals…

Following a six-day trial, a Texas jury found that Great American Insurance Company breached its policy with a hydraulic fracturing company and engaged in unfair settlement practices when it refused to pay for loss the company sustained in a well accident. The decision highlights the need to vigorously pursue coverage using all information available and the benefits of leveraging state statutory protections governing unfair claims settlement practices to ensure that insurers handle claims in a prompt, fair, and reasonable manner.
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Continue Reading Texas Jury Awards Millions to Fracking Company For Insurer’s Bad Faith Denial of Claim For Broken Well Equipment

A federal appeals court reversed an auto parts manufacturer’s summary judgment win, construing a policy limitation on flood hazards to apply broadly to all types of losses, even though the limit “does not expressly say what losses it limits.” In Federal-Mogul LLC v. Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, manufacturer Federal-Mogul suffered more than $60 million in property and time-element losses following a 2011 flood in one of its factories in Thailand. Federal-Mogul submitted a claim to its insurer, but the insurer refused to pay more than $30 million because the flood occurred in a high hazard flood zone, to which the insurer argued a sublimit in the policy applied.
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Continue Reading Sixth Circuit Broadly Construes Policy Sublimit, Limits Recovery for Thai Factory Flood

A federal court in Pennsylvania has held that Liberty Mutual must defend its insured, Hershey Creamery Company, in an intellectual property infringement lawsuit because the suit raises claims that potentially implicate coverage under the policies’ personal and advertising injury coverages. The court further found that the alleged wrongful conduct was not subject to the policies’ IP infringement exclusion.
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Continue Reading IP Lawsuit Triggers Insurers’ Duty to Defend

The Tennessee Supreme Court has refused to construe an ambiguous definition of actual cash value to allow for deduction of labor costs as part of depreciation calculations where that subset of repair costs are not clearly addressed in the policy. Despite the split of authority nationwide, the Tennessee case presents a straightforward application of policy interpretation principles to a common valuation issue in first-party property claims.
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Continue Reading Tennessee High Court Excludes Labor Costs from Insurer’s Actual Cash Value Depreciation Calculations