In 2013, Gardere Wynne Sewell obtained a Texas Supreme Court ruling that resulted in a multimillion-dollar payment to a policyholder in an insurance coverage dispute. The firm also won a defense verdict for an insurer that faced the possibility of up to $120 million in actual damages in a breach of contract case. “We’ve had a very good year on the insurance side—on both sides of the docket,” said Gardere Houston partner Jim Cooper, an insurance lawyer in the trial practice group.
Cooper and John Slates, a former Gardere partner and founding partner in Slates Harwell in Dallas, represented homebuilder Lennar Corp. in Lennar Corp. v. Markel American Insurance Co. The outcome of the long-running case was an $8.2 million payment by Markel to Lennar and the Supreme Court’s clarification of the law affecting insurers’ liability for construction defects.
