Maloney Lauersdorf Reiner PC of Portland Oregon

F.J. Maloney is recognized as the "go-to" attorney in large first-party extra contractual and "Bad Faith" litigation. F.J. started his legal career as a Deputy District Attorney for Deschutes County, Oregon, where he gained valuable trial experience prosecuting criminal cases ranging from juvenile delinquencies and dependencies to minor misdemeanors and major felonies including capital murder. Since moving to civil practice, he has focused on a wide range of first-party cases involving SIU and fraud, tort defense, "Bad Faith" and extra contractual trial work. F.J. is panel counsel for several national insurance companies and has litigated cases in both the state and federal courts of Oregon, Washington, South Dakota, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona. FJ also has appellate experience in Oregon, the Eight Circuit and the Sixth Circuit. His published articles have appeared in the Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Law Journal and Mealey's Litigation Report, and he is a frequent speaker at events such as the Tort Trial & Insurance Law Section of the American Bar Association and the Large Loss PLRB.

Prior to attending the University of Oregon School of Law and "settling down" in Oregon, FJ lived throughout the United States, moving often. He attended school at St. John's Preparatory School in Collegeville, Minnesota, Stift Gymnasium Melk in Melk, Austria, and Boston College, where he obtained his degree in English and Environmental Geosciences. FJ also pursued graduate studies at Northeastern University's College of Criminal Justice while training as an associate instructor with the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School. FJ later spent a year as a ski instructor in Park City, Utah, then two years as a deckhand and mate aboard a large motoryacht during a global circumnavigation. He continues to stay active as an avid runner and bicyclist.

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Professional & Civic Involvement

American Bar Association (Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Session, Vice Chair, 2006 - present). Mr. Maloney was also an organizer and co-chair of the TTIPS 2006 Spring Meeting in Calsbad, California
Federal Bar Association (Former member of Board of Directors of Oregon Chapter, 2002-2005)
American Judicature Society, Member. Also appointed to AJS's National Advisory Council (Membership Committee, 2007)
Oregon Association of Defense County (Member of Task Force for Judicial Excellence, 2006)
Attorney Panel, International Association of Special Investigation Unit (2000-2005)
Member, Multnomah County Bar Association
Oregon State Bar Association
Member and Chair, Archdiocesan Pastoral Council for the Catholic Archdiocese of Oregon at Portland (2003- 2006)

Articles and Presentations

Co-Author and Presenter - "Conflicts of Interest and Litigation Experts," Scientific Evidence Review of the TTIPS Journal, Monograph No. 7 (2006). FJ also co-presented this article at the 2005 Spring Meeting of the ABA Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Seminar
Co-Author, "Recent Developments in Property Insurance Law," Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Law Journal, Vol. 40:2, Winter 2005
Speaker, "Avoiding Bad Faith and Pitfalls to Avoid," AISIU Seminar (2004)
Co-Presenter, "Challenges in Oregon Insurance Coverage Litigation," National Business Institute Seminar (a day-long presentation and CLE;) Author, "Analyzing Insurance Contract Provisions," "Subrogation," and "Bad Faith Litigation" portions of presentation materials (2003)
Speaker / Co-Author, "Use of a Policy's Appraisal Provision in Fraudulent Claims," AISIU Seminar (2003)
Author, "Deductibles in First-Party Claims," Tort & Insurance Law Journal, Vol. 37:3, Spring 2002 (regarding the application of per-occurrence deductibles in first-party property cases).
Speaker, "Fighting Insurance Fraud with RICO," AISIU Seminar (2002)
Speaker, "First Party Bad Faith in Oregon - Holding Firm Against the Tide, "Annual International Association of Special Investigations Unit (AISIU) Seminar (2001)
Author, "What Constitutes a 'Thorough' Investigation," Mealey's Litigation Report: Insurance Bad Faith, Nov. 2, 1999.

Published Representative Cases

Dixon v. Sentinel Ins. Co., 2010 WL 1924699 (D.Or.). This is a first party liability coverage case where the United States District Court for the District of Oregon granted summary judgment in favor of Sentinel. The plaintiff suffered injuries when he was hit by a train after the homeowners' son served plaintiff with alcohol at the insured residence. The parties disputed whether the homeowners' son, who was on the premises for purposes of caring for the family pets, was an insured under the terms of the homeowners' insurance policy. The Court agreed with MLR's argument, finding that for the son to be an "insured" under the meaning of the policy, liability must have arisen due to harm caused by the pets while they were in his care. Since the family pets did not cause the harm, the son was not an "insured" and there was no duty to defend. More >>

Hartford Casualty Insurance Company v. Calcot. Hartford insured a cotton ginning facility in Memphis, Tennessee that was destroyed by fire. During the course of replacing the property, Hartford learned that false invoices had been submitted through shell corporations for equipment that was never purchased or which was fraudulently inflated. Hartford filed a declaratory judgment complaint to have the policy deemed void and to recover all of the $3.4 million in policy benefits already paid. The District Court granted Hartford's motion for summary judgment, deemed the policy void, and awarded Hartford $3.4 million in policy benefits. LINK Post judgment issues regarding imposition of prejudgment interest are still being briefed before the District Court. Calcot has also appealed the ruling to the Sixth Circuit.

Ruede v. City of Florence, 231 Or.App. 435, 220 P.3d 113 (Or.App.,2009). Business owners brought action against their insurer under an "all risk" insurance policy, seeking coverage for cost of repairs to their building foundation after a gap in a culvert underneath the building allowed sand and earth to wash away and create voids beneath the concrete slab, which caused the slab to sink and walls to separate from the foundation. The trial court granted summary judgment based upon the policy exclusions for earth movement, and rejected the insureds' argument that it was a covered collapse. The Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's ruling. More >>

Dewsnup v. Farmers Ins. Co. of Oregon, 229 Or.App. 314, 211 P.3d 354 (Or.App.,2009). Homeowners brought action against insurer under their homeowners insurance policy, seeking coverage for water damage to the interior of their house that was caused when the roof was removed for repairs, covered by a tarp, and the tarp then blew off in a rainstorm. For water damage to be covered, the policy required that windstorm or hail must have first caused damage to the building or roof. The Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's summary judgment ruling in favor of Farmers and held that a tarp was not a roof. LINK The case is currently on appeal before the Oregon Supreme Court.

Great American Ins. Co. of New York v. Jackson County School Dist. No. 9. The School District insured a junior high school with Great American. The school was destroyed by a fire. The School District, working in close coordination with Great American, spent several years designing and obtaining approval for a replacement school building, to be of like kind and quality. Great American hired its own expert to study the design and ensure the replacement building would meet that standard. As part of this process, the School District demolished the old school building to make way for the replacement building, and allegedly spent over seven hundred thousand dollars on design, permitting, and other costs. After three years of working together on this process, Great American and the School District reached an impasse and Great American brought an action in federal court. This litigation resulted in three separate legal rulings from the District Court, with the major ones summarized as follows: (1) fact questions existed as to whether Great American was equitably estopped from invoking the insurance policy's two-year suit limitation period(see 478 F.Supp.2d 227 (D.Or.,2007) LINK); (2) however, under the circumstances the two-year limitation that limitation does establish a reasonable ceiling for inflation when computing the cost of replacement and the School District was not entitled to recover for added costs attributable to inflation beyond that two year window following the fire(see 2007 WL 2713894 (D.Or., September 17, 2007)); and (3) replacement with "like kind and quality" does not mean using the identical materials and construction techniques used at the time the structure was originally built, but implies a functional replacement using modern construction materials and techniques comparable to the quality and durability of the school that was damaged (see 2007 WL 2713894 (D.Or., September 17, 2007) More >>

Hammonds v. Hartford Fire Insurance Co. No. 06-3549, 8th Cir.; 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 2146 (South Dakota Federal Court ruled on summary judgment that plaintiff previously released this claim for "bad faith" and additional workers compensation benefits, and that the alleged facts do not support any claims as a matter of law. Case affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.)

Schaffer Logging v. Commonwealth Ins. Co., 2006 WL 3716897 (D. Or.) (slip copy) (holding that damage to logging equipment was not a covered loss due to exclusions for mechanical failure and improper operation).

Aginsky v. Farmers Ins. Exch., 409 F Supp 2d 1230 (D Or 2005) (holding that a tarp applied to a roof during repairs does not constitute a "roof" for purposes of coverage.)

Tansy v. North Pacific Iins. Co., 2005 WL 1334546 (D. Or.) (holding that the husband of the Plaintiff, as a named insured in a case involving affirmative defenses of fraud and misrepresentation, and who was now a fugitive in Argentina, should be joined as a mandatory Plaintiff.)

Lewis-Williamson v. Grange Mutual Ins. Co., 179 Or.App. 491 (Feb. 13, 2002) (upholding the trial court's summary judgment, holding that homeowner's reliance upon a captive insurance agent does not create the "special relationship" necessary to assert tort claims in the first-party property context.)

Prudential Property & Casualty Insurance Company v. Susan Lillard-Roberts, 2002 WL 31495830 (D. Or.) (granting summary judgment in "toxic mold" case based upon exclusions for faulty workmanship and ensuing loss.)

State of Oregon v. Billey Delmont Maxwell, 165 Ore. App. 467, 998 P.2d 680 (Or. Ct. App. 2000) (Trial attorney. Expanding Oregon's stalking laws to include stalking behavior not witnessed by the victim, but reasonably calculated to be communicated to the victim.)

State of Oregon v. Guzek, 336 Or 424, 86 P3d 1106 (2004) (Co-counsel during the resentencing phase of capital murder case. Trial court ruling regarding admissibility of victim impact statements upheld by U.S. Supreme Court, State v. Guzek, 546 US 517, 126 S Ct 1226, 163 L Ed 2d 1112 (2006).)

fjm@coveragelit.com
503.245.1529