Patricia concentrates her practice primarly on insurance coverage litigation and counseling, bad faith litigation, environmental and toxic tort litigation, and appellate practice. She has represented a large number of insurance companies and insurance industry professionals in both first and third party insurance coverage and bad faith matters. Patricia provides coverage opinions and advice to insurance carriers concerning their coverage obligations under insurance policies they issued and which provided CGL, homeowners', automobile liability, UM/UIM, PIP, workers' compensation and/or employer's liability coverage. She has also represented oil delivery companies and other third parties in litigation where they have been asked to assume or share in the costs of state-mandated clean up and remediation of environmental contamination. In addition, Patricia has had a great deal of experience in the defense of general liability, professional malpractice and products liability matters.
In 1990, Patricia graduated magna cum laude from Fairfield University. She then went on to obtain her juris doctor from Villanova University School of Law in 1993, after which she was admitted to the bar in the states of New Jersey and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
After working for another defense litigation law firm in Morristown, New Jersey, Patricia joined Marshall Dennehey in 1997 and practices in the firm's Roseland, New Jersey, office, where she oversees the bad faith/coverage matters in that office.
Results
Summary Judgment for Insurer in Complex Coverage Case
We successfully persuaded the court to grant summary judgement on behalf of a major insurer on a complex coverage issue. This coverage case concerned two Virginia personal automobile policies in regard to an automobile accident in New Jersey. The son of a divorced couple sought coverage for an accident he was involved in on a major thoroughfare in New Jersey. At the time of the accident, the son was operating a motor vehicle owned by another Virginia resident, and he had the reasonable expectation that he had permission to operate the vehicle. The accident was very serious, and he sought coverage under both of his parents’ policies. As to the mother’s policy, we convinced the court that the son was not an insured under her policy because he was not so designated on the policy’s declaration page, which was a specific condition of the policy pursuant to Virginia law. As to the father’s policy, once again, we convinced the court that the son was not an insured under this policy given the fact that the mother had sole and exclusive custody under the divorce agreement; thus, the son was not a resident relative of the father’s household. Therefore, neither policy provided coverage for the son, and the insurer was totally dismissed from the case.
Court Agrees Mode of Operations Does Not Apply in Retail Liability Case
We were successful on a motion for summary judgment, thereby barring the application of the mode of operations in a slip and fall case where an alleged partially eaten sandwich was found in the aisle of the retailer. The facts indicated that the sandwich came from a fast-food sandwich shop within the premises and was dropped by an unidentified customer, who took the item to go and dropped it in the aisle before the plaintiff fell. The court ruled that the mode of operations did not apply because the aisle, which contained greeting cards and the like, and did not create an extension of the cafeteria within the retailer’s premises. Further, the court ruled there was no nexus to any self-serve component of the fast food restaurant’s business to the area in the retailer’s store proper where the accident occurred.
