Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller lawyers recently led the successful defense of a complex insurance coverage action brought against firm client Twin City Fire Insurance Company, prevailing before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in a unanimous, precedential opinion.
Plaintiffs Robert Mau and Eagle Well Services, Inc., a North Dakota oil-services company, sued Twin City in 2016, contending they were entitled to coverage for a lawsuit brought by another oil-services company, Sun Well, for breach of a noncompetition covenant. Sun Well allegedly sought damages of $23 million. In the coverage action, Mau argued that he was owed insurance coverage as a director and officer of MW Industries, a company that was mentioned, but not sued, in the Sun Well lawsuit.
In 2017, HASPS won summary judgment for Twin City in the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota. On December 6, 2018, in an opinion by Circuit Judge Raymond W. Gruender, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment that there was no coverage, agreeing with HASPS’ arguments on questions of capacity, waiver, and the application of the policy’s dual-service and contract exclusions.
The HASPS team litigating the case was comprised of Ronald P. Schiller, Bonnie M. Hoffman, and Thomas N. Brown.
For more coverage of the case, please click here.
