Eric A. Fitzgerald, a leader of Goldberg Segalla’s Global Insurance Services team in Pennsylvania, acts as coverage counsel for insurance companies in state and federal courts throughout Pennsylvania and New York. He has extensive experience in a wide variety of professional, casualty, property, and specialty lines including errors and omissions (E & O); cyber; directors and officers (D & O); employment practices liability; law enforcement liability; commercial property; boiler and machinery; inland marine; builder’s risk; owner controlled insurance programs (OCIPs); commercial auto; and worker’s compensation. He has also served as both a mediator and an arbitrator in insurance coverage disputes.
Eric has devoted his career to representing the interests of the insurance industry. He received his designation as a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU), and Associate in Reinsurance (ARe). He has served on the Executive Committee of the CPCU Society’s National Board of Governors, as well as on its Nominating Committee and its Champions committee, and is a former CPCU instructor. In association with the American Institute for CPCU, Eric participated in the drafting of several textbooks. In addition to his CPCU activities, Eric is a Certified Litigation Management Professional with the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance (CLM) and he is an instructor in the CLM Claims College. He is also a member of the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS), the Property Legal Research Bureau (PRLB) and the American College of Coverage and Extracontractual Counsel (ACCEC). He is the recipient of many honors, including an AV Preeminent rating by Martindale-Hubbell.
Prior to joining Goldberg Segalla, Eric was the assistant director of his last firm’s Professional Liability Department, chair of its Insurance Coverage group, and firm risk manager, where he was in charge of overseeing 16 practice groups and a total of 150 attorneys. He started his career in 1993 as a judicial clerk for the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department, where he participated in the drafting of many significant coverage decisions.
Experience Highlights
Representative Matters
•Trial verdict for insurer in a matter regarding the reformation of a complex insurance program for a holding company with over 200 subsidiaries. Case involved testimony from senior officers from the insured corporation and the insurer and broker. Policy was reformed on behalf of the insurer to add a subsidiary and, therefore, subject to an exclusion for negligent operation of vehicle in the course of employee’s duties for the employer.
•Trial verdict for insurer on “assault and battery” exclusion. Court applied exclusion and found no duty to defend or indemnify after denying summary judgment earlier in the case. Decision upheld on appeal to the Pennsylvania Superior Court.
•Summary judgment for insurer in a matter involving the alleged faulty construction and site selection for a multi-million-dollar mining project. Court held that the insured engineer’s work was not an “occurrence” and fell within the policy exclusions for professional services and work product of the insured. Court further rejected attempts by insured counsel to apply a continuous trigger theory of causation in a property damage case and held that the claim manifested prior to the inception of the policy.
•Summary judgment for insurer applying “interrelated businesses” exclusion in a D&O liability claim. Court held that criminal “check kiting scheme” by necessity utilized the checking accounts of an uninsured business as well as the insured business and triggered the exclusion as a matter of law.
•Summary judgment for insurer on issue of whether plaintiff was a dual employee of two affiliated corporations and subject to “employer’s liability” exclusion. After reviewing factual testimony from company officers, court agreed that insured company was a dual employer of the plaintiff although his W-2s and employment file were with an affiliated company.
•Summary judgment for insurer enforcing insured’s UIM stacking waiver. Court found that the statute requiring issuance of an “important notice” did not provide a statutory remedy for an insurer’s failure to issue the notice and that the waiver was, therefore, valid despite statutory violation.
•Summary judgment for insurer finding no ambiguity in blank retroactive date on claims-made policy. Court applied regulation defining retroactive date to hold that a blank date equated inception date, not full prior acts.
•Judgment on the pleadings for insurer on duty to indemnify real estate appraiser in “sub prime” litigation complaint. The court held that the allegations of fraud and conspiracy were not negligent wrongful acts under the professional liability policy.
Honors & Awards
Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Rating: AV Preeminent
Buffalo Moot Court Board
Community Involvement
•Kids Innovating State and Sound (KISS) Theatre Company
•Board of Directors: Chairman, 2014-16
•Member, 2016 to present
Training and Certifications
•Certified Litigation Management Professional (CLMP), Claims and Litigation Management Alliance (CLM)
•Claims Litigation Management Institute, 2012
Publications & Events
Publications
•“Eric Fitzgerald Jumps to Goldberg Segalla ,” The Legal Intelligencer, January 21, 2020
•“Understanding Reverse Bad Faith,” Claims Management, May 2016
•“Contract Confusion: Clearing up the Differences Between Risk Transfer Concepts in Construction Agreements,” Claims Management, May 2014
•“What’s In Your Manual? A Three-Step Guide For Windstorm Claims Management,” Claims Management, August 2013
•“Have Reservations? 10 Tips For Coverage Position Letters,” Litigation Management, Spring 2012
•“Co-Author: Commonly Litigated Coverage Issues Involving Personal Automobile Policies,” Insurance Law Handbook, New York State Bar Association, 2000
•“Infant Switch Spotlights Risk at Hospitals,” National Underwriter, October 5, 1998
•“Contributing Author: Procedural Issues Unique to a Product Liability Lawsuit (Supplement),” Products Liability in New York - Strategies and Practice, 1999
•Contributing Author: “Strategies and Tactics in the Wake of Tort Reform (Supplement), Preparing for and Trying the Civil Lawsuit,” 1999
Presentations
•Tear it Up and Start Overa •The New Generation of AFAs, CLM Annual Conference, Orlando, FL, March 2019
•Coverage Issues in Pennsylvania School Claims, 2018
•Best Practices for Coverage Position Letters, 2018
•Coverage Issues for Defective Workmanship Claims in NY, PA and NJ, 2017
•Jurisdictional Hotspots for Policy Limit Time Demands, 2016
•Insurance 101 for Workers’ Compensation Policies, 2016
•Generally Acting Professionala •Coordination of General Liability and Professional Liability Policies, 2016
•Underwriters Under Fire: Best Practices for Underwriter Testimony and Production of Underwriting Files in Litigation, 2016
•Coverage Position Letters in PA, NY and NJ, 2016
•EPL 101, Merchants Insurance Group, April 19, 2016
•Additional Insureds and Related Issues
•Best Practices for Handling Split Claim Files, 2015
•Professional Services Exclusions
•Best Practices in Maintaining Claims Files
•Coverage Issues Arising out of Faulty Workmanship Claims
•Coverage Issues Arising out of Employers Liability Coverages
•Coverage Issues Arising out of Municipal Professional Liability Policies
•Cross-over Uninsured/Underinsured Motorists Claims in PA and NY
•Negotiation Techniques
•Priority of Coverage in Rental Vehicle Claims
•Intentional Acts/Occurrence
•Course Instructor: CPCU 6 “The Legal Environment of Insurance”
Recent Insights
Eric Fitzgerald Jumps to Goldberg Segalla, The Legal Intelligencer
January 23, 2020
Goldberg Segalla Welcomes Eric A. Fitzgerald
January 21, 2020
