LORELIE S. MASTERS (LORIE), Partner Publications · Professional Activities Washington, DC Office Office: (202) 639-6076 Fax: (202) 661-4924 Email: lmasters@jenner.com  Add to Outlook Contacts

Lorelie S. Masters is a partner in Jenner & Block’s Washington, DC office.  She is a member of the Firm’s Litigation Department and Climate and Clean Technology Law and Insurance Litigation and Counseling Practices.  Ms. Masters is AV Peer Review Rated, Martindale-Hubbell’s highest peer recognition for ethical standards and legal ability.  Ms. Masters was also recognized in the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 editions of Washington DC Super Lawyers for Insurance Coverage Litigation, and by The Best Lawyers in America for Insurance Law in 2008, 2009 and 2010.  Since 2005, Chambers & Partners USA has named Ms. Masters one of the country’s leading lawyers in Insurance Law.

Prior to joining Jenner & Block, Ms. Masters spent 17 years at Anderson Kill & Olick, L.L.P., in its nationally recognized insurance coverage group.  Since 1983, she has advised and represented companies and individuals seeking to enforce insurance coverage under general liability, directors & officers, first-party property, health, and other types of insurance.  Ms. Masters also has extensive experience in e-commerce issues and related records-management and electronic-discovery issues that arise from the increasing reliance on technology and computers.

Ms. Masters has handled, tried, and settled cases in state and federal trial and appellate courts across the country and, more recently, in arbitrations in the United States and abroad.  At issue in these cases typically have been millions of dollars of insurance coverage for products liability and directors and officers claims.

Ms. Masters served as lead trial counsel for policyholder Hoechst Celanese Corporation in its action enforcing general liability insurance coverage for hundreds of thousands of product-liability claims against the policyholder in what the press called the largest property damage class action settlement ever.  The National Law Journal called the jury's verdict in Hoechst Celanese’s coverage case one of the “most significant jury verdicts of 1997.”  Most recently, Ms. Masters obtained an award of more than $92 million to cover product-liability claims against a major pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturer in an arbitration conducted in London under the English Arbitration Act, 1996.

Ms. Masters is co-author of Insurance Coverage Litigation, an in-depth legal treatise first published in 1997 and updated annually; and Liability Insurance in International Arbitration: The Bermuda Form.  Ms. Masters serves on the Litigation Steering Committee for the District of Columbia Bar and on the Committee on Admissions which administers and oversees applications and examinations for admission to the District of Columbia Bar.  Ms. Masters was President of the Women's Bar Association of the District of Columbia from 2007-2008.  She is a past Policyholder Chair of the Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee of the Section of Litigation of the American Bar Association and continues to serve in the Section of Litigation’s Leadership.

Ms. Masters serves on the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession.  She chaired the Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee's Midyear CLE Meeting in 1999 and is a former Editor of the Committee’s award-winning, bi-monthly journal, Coverage.  Ms. Masters is a member of the American Law Institute.  Ms. Masters received the National Association of Women Lawyer's 2005 Service Award for her work as Chair of NAWL's Amicus Committee.

Ms. Masters graduated in 1981 from Notre Dame Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Legislation and a Scholar with the Thomas J. and Alberta White Center.  She graduated from Georgetown University, cum laude, in 1977.

Below is a list of representative litigation matters handled by Ms. Masters (client names in bold):

• New Century Mortgage Corp. v. Great Northern Insurance Co., No. 07-640, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100033 (D. Del. Oct. 26, 2009).  Court granted the policyholder’s motion for summary judgment against the insurers, holding as a matter of law that the policyholder’s Advertising Injury Coverage applied to pay New Century’s blast-fax liabilities in an underlying blast-fax action.  As a result of this decision, the insurers agreed to settle with the policyholder for a favorable amount.
  
  
• New Century Liquidating Trust:  In re: New Century TRS Holdings, Inc., Case No. 07-10416 (KJC) (D. Del.).  Since June of 2007, Ms. Masters has advised a major subprime lender, New Century Financial Corporation, first as the debtor-in-possession and later as the Liquidating Trust, on a wide variety of insurance coverage issues arising in the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. 
  
  
• 2200 M Street, LLC, et al. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., et al., Index No. 127209/02 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., New York County); Carol Anderson v. Millennium Partners, LLC, et al., Civil Action No. 04-7454 (DC Super. Ct.); Federal Insurance Co. v. Bovis Lend Lease, et al., Civil Action No. 04-0008306 (DC Super. Ct.); Alyson Gannon v. The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. LLC, et al., Civil Action No. 05-ca-001130 (DC Super. Ct.); 2200 M Street LLC v. Bovis Lend Lease, Inc., et al., Index No. 0602690/2003 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., New York County).  Represented general contractor in insurance coverage dispute and other related actions.  After a lengthy mediation, achieved a successful settlement of this complex matter, resolving all coverage aspects favorably for client, as well as significant aspects of the construction disputes in 2005.
  
  
• In re the Arbitration of Ticona (formerly Hoechst Celanese Corp.) v. XL Insurance Co., Ltd.  Lead trial counsel for the policyholder in this arbitration conducted under the English Arbitration Act, 1996, in London.  As reported under financial disclosure laws, a three-member arbitration panel, comprised of a retired chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, a member of the House of Lords, and a distinguished Queen’s Counsel, in June 2003 awarded Ms. Masters policyholder client the full policy limit of $75 million plus $20 million in pre- and post-judgment for mass-tort liabilities covered under the policyholder’s excess general liability insurance policy.
  
  
• Central Me. Power Co. v. Ernest A. Moore, No. CV-93-489 (Me. Super. Ct. May 16, 1999, and Jan. 10, 2000).  Court granted the policyholder’s motions to add the Equitas companies as the real parties in interest for the liability insurance policies at issue sold by pre-1994 Lloyd’s syndicates.  The court later denied the Equitas defendants’ motions to dismiss alleging lack of personal jurisdiction, failure to state a claim, and insufficiency of service of process.  The case settled soon thereafter, on the eve of trial. 
  
  
• Transit Cas. Co. v. Hoechst Celanese Corp., No. CV696-0002CC (Mo. Cir. Ct.).  Represented the policyholder Hoechst Celanese Corporation in contested proceeding over more than $100 million in insurance coverage for hundreds of thousands of product-liability claims alleging property damage due to incorporation of policyholder’s product into polybutylene plumbing systems.  Obtained rulings in policyholder’s favor on issues relating to timeliness of notice to excess insurer Transit Casualty and trigger and allocation.  Achieved in 1998 a settlement of tens of millions of dollars for the policyholder.
  
  
• Hoechst Celanese Corp. v. North River Ins. Co., No. 89C-SE-35 (Del. Super. Ct. Sept. 26, 1997).  A jury rejected all of the insurance company’s defenses to coverage and adopted a continuous trigger of coverage after an eight-week trial.  The jury deliberated just two-and-a-half hours in reaching its verdict.  Ms. Masters served as lead trial counsel.
  
  
• Hoechst Celanese Corp. v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, 673 A.2d 164 (Del. 1996).  This decision reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the insurance company defendants on trigger of coverage under “occurrence” insurance policies and adopted the injury-in-fact trigger of coverage advocated by the policyholder under applicable New York law.  Ms. Masters was the principal strategist overseeing production of motion for interlocutory appeal from the lower court and appellate briefs filed in the Delaware Supreme Court and Record on Appeal.
  
  
• In re the Matter of an Arbitration Between XL Ins. Co., Ltd. and Dow Corning Corp.  As discussed in public bankruptcy proceedings in 1996, Ms. Masters worked with Dow Corning to achieve a settlement for millions of dollars in insurance coverage for silicone gel breast implant claims pending against Dow Corning.  Settlement was consummated on the eve of the final arbitration hearing.
  
  
• Hoechst Celanese Corp. v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, 656 A.2d 1094 (Del. 1995).  Reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the London insurer defendants and adopted the policyholder’s position on trigger of coverage and the applicability of “tail” coverage under claims-made insurance policies drafted in the London Market. 
  
  
• North Am. Philips Corp. v. Republic Ins. Co., No. 376040, 1991 Conn. Super. LEXIS 1768 (Conn. Super. Ct. Mar. 8, 1992).  Adopted the policyholder’s position that based on the follow-form provisions, second-layer excess insurance policies were required to drop down in the place of underlying insolvent insurance. 
  
  
• Monsanto Co. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., No. 88C-JA-118, and North Am. Philips Corp. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., No. 88C-JA-155 (Del. Super. Ct. Sept. 19, 1990).  In the first decision in the country that refused insurer motions for summary judgment on the “absolute pollution exclusion” in an environmental coverage case, court found that genuine questions of material fact required denial of insurance companies’ motion for summary judgment that coverage was precluded by the “absolute” pollution exclusion in certain insurance policies. 
  
  
• Independent Petrochemical Corp. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 654 F. Supp. 1335 (D.D.C. 1988).  Denied insurance companies’ motions for summary judgment that punitive damages were not covered and that the policyholder’s notice was “late.”
  
  
• Martin Marietta Corp. v. Fuller Co., No. 83-2359 (D. Md.), aff’d, 852 F.2d. 566 (4th Cir. 1988).  Awarded, after six-week trial, damages to plaintiff for breach of contract to build a cement plant in Utah. 
  
  
• Keene Corp. v. Insurance Co. of N. Am., No. 78-1011 (D.DC), on remand from 667 F.2d 1034 (D.C. Cir. 1981).  Worked on all aspects of pretrial proceedings in the damages portion of the landmark insurance coverage case that established the “continuous trigger” theory of coverage.  Case settled on the eve of trial. 
  

Publications and Articles:

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Speaking Engagements:

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