Nine Best Practices In Defending Billion-Dollar Claims

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By Stratton Horres & Karen Bashor

We must think the unthinkable and be ready for the unimaginable in 2021. We are all too familiar with the scenario from major news outlets: “Breaking news alert -- we report to you live from the scene of a mass casualty event involving [mass

About The Authors:

shooting, building collapse, wildfire, refinery or bomb explosion, or catastrophic transportation accident involving planes, trains, trucks or other] and it is believed that there are x fatalities and y injuries. Stay tuned for details.” As insurance carriers and defense litigators, we must be ready for any of these events from the moment they occur.

So, when you get the call, what do you do? Based on our experience, have developed a “nine best practices” protocol for guidance in handling the most difficult and complex situations. We discuss each step in detail below. STEP ONE: Immediately create a defined team to handle the crisis at the outset. Immediately naming your legal team, or better yet having predetermined counsel for such crisis situations, allows the insured to be more prepared out of the gate than plaintiffs. Plaintiffs’ counsel may organize quickly, be aggressive and start making discovery demands immediately.

SOME CRITICAL ACTIONS INVOLVE:

See Defending $Billion Claims Page 28

Stratton Horres is an accomplished litigator who has more than 40 years of experience behind his practice, which is focused on crisis management and defending clients in catastrophic and high-exposure mass casualty events in virtually all areas. Cases have included mass shootings, commercial, products liability, health care, wildfires, explosions, transportation incidents of all kinds and construction collapse matters. In addition, Stratton frequently is engaged as monitoring counsel on behalf of insurers in these kinds of cases.

Karen Bashor has significant litigation and trial experience with complex litigation, large transportation claims and catastrophic injury defense. She has successfully handled civil and criminal jury trials in state and federal court in Nevada and New Jersey. Prior to joining Wilson Elser, Karen was the first woman partner and first minority partner at a prominent Las Vegas law firm where she routinely handled large cases involving multimillion-dollar claims, including punitive damages, fraud and wrongful death. She has vigorously defended small and large companies and individuals across the nation. Karen also handled complex litigation in the area of medical malpractice involving individuals and facilities while at another large Nevada law firm, and has experience handling other civil litigation matters, including commercial litigation, premises liability and employment law.