Lynndon K. Groff

Lynndon Groff represents major insurers in complex coverage, bad faith, and insurance contract disputes. His practice encompasses a variety of insurance claims, including matters involving environmental pollution and long-term exposure to hazardous substances, personal injury and property damage in numerous states. He regularly deals with issues such as trigger of coverage, number of occurrences, application of policy exclusions, timely notice, duty to defend, applicable limits, allocation of coverage among multiple insurers and between covered and non-covered damages and choice-of-law.

• Advises insurer clients on cutting edge issues involving PFAS (“forever chemicals”) under several diverse types of insurance policies
• Achieved summary judgment that term per occurrence limits rather than annual per occurrence limits totaling tens of millions of dollars applied to underlying pollution claims
• 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