Mark represents both domestic and international insurers and reinsurers in subrogation recovery actions throughout the United States.  The claims range in complexity from the straight-forward to the most complex incidents arising from refinery operations.  Mark has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of his clients.    Mark handles every aspect of the subrogation case from initial investigation; evidence identification and preservation; assembly of the expert team; workup of the case in the litigation phase to include deposition and motion practice; mediation; and trial.  Mark also represents general liability insurers in a wide-range of matters defending against third-party liability claims Last, Mark has experience defending bad-faith and coverage matters brought by insureds.

Honors & Awards:

• AV Rated by Martindale Hubbell

Notable Cases:

• $317,286,604.00 Jury verdict against equipment manufacturer (Settled before entry of verdict for $195,000,000.00)

  • Lima Refining Company v. HARSCO Corporation Individually and as a Successor by Merger with HARSCO Industrial Hammco, LLC., Individually and as a Successor by Merger with Hammco Corporation; in the 281st Judicial District Court Harris County, Texas; Cause No. 2016-22457.

  • Co-trial counsel with Aaron Pool (Lead Counsel).  Represented Lima Refining Company against Harsco Corporation.  In 2009 Lima purchased 4 air-cooled heat exchanges for use in the refineries’ Isocracker Unit from Hammco Corporation.  Hammco was later merged into Harsco Corporation.  On January 10, 2015, one of the air-cooled heat exchangers experienced a catastrophic failure when a long-seam weld on the return header box failed.  The failure resulted in the release of high pressure (1800 psi) hydrogen and oil to the atmosphere where it formed a large vapor cloud.  The vapor cloud reached an ignition source and exploded causing extensive damage to the refinery.  The ensuing fire burned for over 12 hours.

  • The heat exchanger was made from 2205 duplex stainless steel.  The defendant/manufacturer did not understand the proper welding of 2205 duplex.  The weld was defective in that the Heat Affected Zone had high ferrite thereby making it susceptible to Sulfide Stress Cracking which lead to the weld failure.  In the absence of high ferrite, the weld would not have failed. 

  • The jury returned a unanimous verdict in favor of Lima.  However, before the verdict was read, the parties reached a settlement.  The jury verdict was then read by the court but did not impact the settlement.  The jury did not answer a damages question as the parties stipulated the recoverable damages to be $317,286,604.00.

• Recovery from maintenance contractor

  • Represented oil refinery and its insurers in connection with a fire that damaged the refineries’ crude unit vacuum tower.  The refinery hired the contractor to remove a vacuum tower bottoms pump to perform maintenance on the pump.  The pump was in parallel with a sister pump.  So, the process was running during the removal of the pump for maintenance.  The contractor failed to follow its own flange breaking procedure when removing the pump.  This resulted in the

  • escape of vacuum tower bottoms from the flange when the seal was broken in preparation for removing the pump.  The VTB ignited resulting in a large fire.  Case settled for confidential eight figure amount.

• Recovery from owner of gas processing facility

  • Represented multiple parties who owned plants that utilized natural gas for power and steam generation.  One also used natural gas as a feedstock.  The owner of a gas processing facility negligently failed to maintain its gas pipeline resulting in a leak, explosion, and fire.  The pipeline was out of service for many months resulting in increased costs to the pipeline owner’s customers in the form of alternative fuels and lost production.  Case settled for confidential eight figure amount.

• Recovery from maintenance contractor

  • Represented a chemical plant and its insurers in action against maintenance contractor.  Maintenance contractor placed a scaffold member in a location where it blocked the swing-arm of a non-return valve on a high-pressure steam extraction line off the plant’s steam turbine.  When the turbine was shut down, steam back flowed through the valve resulting in an overspeed and catastrophic failure of the turbine.

• Recovery from prime contractor and subcontractor who installed fire protection piping.

  • Represented owner and insurers of a large manufacturer of paper products located in the Southeastern United States.  The manufacturer hired a contractor to build a warehouse expansion complete with a “wet” fire suppression system.  After installation, mechanical couplings joining the fire protection system piping began to separate.  This resulted in the discharge of massive amounts of water into the warehouse where finished paper goods such as toilet paper, paper towels, napkins and diapers were stored.  Damage was physical damage to the warehouse due to water damage; repair of the fire protection system; and loss of the stored paper products.

• Arbitration-Construction Delay Under Construction All Risk Policy

  • Represented Underwriters of Construction All Risk Policy covering the construction of a power plant.   The loss involved both a physical loss and construction delay claim resulting from an accident that damaged critical components of the plant with those components were in transit.   An Additional Insured brought bad faith claim for failure to pay the full value of the loss.  Underwaters paid the undisputed portions of the physical damage and delay claims.  The insured sought an additional $2.4 million in benefits under the Soft Costs provision of the policy.  Prior to the arbitration hearing the arbitration panel found no evidence of bad faith on the part of Underwriters and granted Underwriters’ motion summary judgment.  At arbitration, the panel awarded less than half of the additional damages sought by the insured. After accounting for legal expenses, Underwriters saved over $1 million dollars on the claim.

• Defense Verdict for Gas Utility

  • Plaintiff sued the local gas utility company for causing gas leak in her home after the installation of a new gas dryer.  The utility denied its employee caused a gas leak.  At trial, Mark was able to prove the fire began in a location away from the supposed gas leak,  and show the fire was electrical in nature.  The jury unanimously found in favor of the utility company after deliberating only 15 minutes.

• Community Service:

  • Over the years Mark has served the local community as Cub Scout Pack Master; President of Blue Tide Aquatics competitive swim team; Moderator and Deacon of his local church; and Children’s Sunday School Teacher.

News:

• Mark has presented educational seminars to insurers in both London and Bermuda on the topics of subrogation and Deposition Boot Camp, a program designed to prepare claims handlers for their first American-style deposition experience.