Daniel E. Tranen

James Thurston (Partner-Chicago), Daniel Tranen (Partner-St. Louis, MO), and Robert Curtis (Associate-St. Louis, MO) secured a declaratory judgment dismissal on motion on the pleadings for an insurance company client in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri. The plaintiffs in this matter, executives at a company insured by our client, sought coverage for a lawsuit and a demand letter arising out of their provision of personal guarantees to the company for more than $14 million in debt to a lender and a supplier. The client had denied coverage because these personal guarantees were not made in the executives' capacity as officers of the company. The executives argued that they would not have made the personal guarantees but for the fact that they were officers of the company. However, the court agreed with the insurance company client that personal guarantees are personal obligations, and therefore, cannot be made by the executives in their "capacity" as officers of the company, particularly since if they had done so, then it would have been the company guaranteeing its own debt.

The St. Louis, Missouri, team of Daniel Tranen (Partner), Julia Wilke (Of Counsel) and Jennifer Boston (Associate) represented a security company client accused to failing to search a psych patient who brought a gun into the hospital emergency department and pointed it at two nurses while they tried to get him to change into hospital scrubs. The nurse plaintiffs argued that the mere fact that he had the gun demonstrated a lapse in security's need to control weapons coming into the emergency department. We convinced the jury that for patients in the treatment area of the emergency department – based on internal hospital policies and the post orders for our client – all searches had to be initiated by hospital staff, and there was no evidence that hospital staff initiated a search. Moreover, the procedures for searches had the search take place after the patient was in hospital scrubs and therefore this particular patient was not yet supposed to be searched under this key policy. Meanwhile, neither nurse plaintiff had requested a search before the gun was discovered, therefore, it was not our client’s fault that the patient had not yet been searched when he revealed the gun to the plaintiff nurses. The plaintiffs requested a verdict of $1 million with both nurses claiming significant PTSD symptoms and damages as a result of the incident. The jury returned a unanimous defense verdict after about an hour (you only need 9 of 12 jurors to reach a verdict in Missouri).

Melissa Murphy-Petros (Of Counsel-Chicago, IL) Jim Thurston (Partner-Chicago, IL), Daniel Tranen (Partner-St. Louis, MO), and Chad Butterfield (Partner-Las Vegas, NV) convinced the Nevada District Court that coverage was not available under a $5 million D&O policy for the putative claims by a bankruptcy litigation trustee against a former officer (Kay). Kay allegedly breached his fiduciary duties to an insured entity when he failed to uncover the criminal fraud of its former CEO (Rogas). The Court followed Wilson Elser’s arguments that Kay’s breaches were “arising from” Rogas’s prior fraud and, therefore, fell within the purview of the exclusionary language of a warranty letter executed by Rogas, wherein he represented that “no insured” (including Rogas) had knowledge or information of any act or error that might give rise to a claim. Following briefing and oral argument by Melissa, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that despite two non-imputation clauses in the policy and allegations of wrongdoing by Rogas after the warranty letter, “the broad language excluding any claim ‘arising from’ pre-execution knowledge” was sufficient to bar any coverage to Kay under the policy. This three-office victory evidences the successful collaboration between Wilson Elser’s coverage, litigation and appellate attorneys on an economical basis without having to use additional local counsel.