Calfee Insurance Recovery Partner Matthew Chiricosta Quoted in Law360 Insurance Authority Article “Insurer Win In Lead Abatement Row A Blow To Policyholders”

Mentioned and Quoted

Calfee Insurance Recovery Partner Matthew A. (Matt) Chiricosta was quoted in the December 19, 2024, Law360 Insurance Authority article “Insurer Win In Lead Abatement Row A Blow To Policyholders.” The article discusses the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling in Sherwin-Williams Co. v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s London et al., which reversed the Eighth Appellate District’s 2022 ruling that Sherwin-Williams was entitled to insurance coverage for its portion of a $305 million settlement abating the effects of lead-based paint in California, saying that the fund payment was not intended to compensate for past harm but to prevent future harm.

Matt, who filed an amicus brief in favor of Sherwin-Williams in the case, said in an interview with reporter Jennifer Mandato that the ruling “went against ‘insurance law 101,’ in which the rules of interpretation say that doubts or ambiguities should be resolved in favor of coverage.”

“The Ohio Supreme Court did the exact opposite here by basically superimposing its own view of what was and was not being remedied here and giving the insurers the benefit of the doubt here,” he continued.

Matt also discussed the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling in In Re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation.

The article states, “The court ‘wiped out’ a $650 million verdict entered against certain companies in the distribution chain of opioids and took public nuisance as a common law theory off the table for these types of claims, Chiricosta said. The award was an abatement remedy, like in Sherwin-Williams, and the court's decision in the MDL answered a certified question from the Sixth Circuit over whether the Ohio Product Liability Act preempts public nuisance claims, he explained.”

“‘With that decision at hand, I don’t know that the Sherwin-Williams case is going to have a lot of future impact in terms of coverage because you’re probably not going to see plaintiffs successfully pursuing these types of claims against entities in the future,’ Chiricosta said.”

Read the full Law360 Insurance Authority article.

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