Bill Cosby has brought in prominent insurance litigator Kirk Pasich to fend off two lawsuits filed by American International Group Inc. challenging its coverage of the comedian’s legal defense in defamation cases filed by women accusing him of rape and sexual assault.
On June 26, AIG Property Casualty Co. brought two suits—one in Massachusetts and one in California—seeking declaratory judgments that “sexual molestation, misconduct or harassment” exemptions in Cosby’s insurance policies prevented the insurer from covering the comedian’s defense against defamation claims. Pasich, a rainmaker who led a 10-lawyer team from Dickstein Shapiro’s Los Angeles office last summer to Liner, successfully got the sexual-misconduct exclusion claims in the California case tossed out on Nov. 13.
