Recent News Summaries
Firm founder Robert A. Stutman and attorney Kevin P. Smith were featured in a web-based seminar on “Standards of Care” hosted June 15 by the National Association of Subrogation Professionals …
The firm recently made the largest recovery known for the mid-line failure of an armored electrical cable alleged to have caused a fire …
In January, the firm secured a $127,533 judgment against a rural Pennsylvania contractor who failed to abide by an arbitrator’s binding decision to pay for damages caused by its negligence in a May 2008 natural gas explosion …
2010 News Summaries
The Stutman team recently reached a settlement of $950,000 in a case that literally was almost lost on the day of the fire …
A large commercial warehouse was destroyed by one of the largest fires in the city’s history. After several years of litigation and discovery, the Stutman Firm established that the fire was initially caused by a defective metal halide lamp …
In 2005 a disgruntled employee set two fires inside a plastic injection molding facility. The fire set near the rack storage area of the building quickly overwhelmed the water based sprinkler system and virtually destroyed the entire facility …
In an article featured in the Spring/Summer issue of the Subrogator magazine, attorneys Robert Stutman and Daniel Hogan explain why mass tort actions can be an attractive alternative to traditional subrogation recovery litigation for small claims …
The Stutman team recently recovered $750,000 in a subrogation litigation arising out of a condominium building fire in Washington State …
2009 News Summaries
As part of a $36 million out-of-court settlement, more than a dozen insurance carriers will recover a significant amount of the payments they made to their insureds as a result of the August 2008 fire at the Riverwalk Millennium Apartment Complex in suburban Philadelphia …
A Monroe County jury has awarded $700,000 to the insurance company for the owner of a Marshalls Creek building that was destroyed by fire as a result of careless smoking by an employee of an electrical contractor, it was announced today …
Usually itճ simple to prevent spoliation: identify potentially interested parties, invite them to inspect the loss site, and preserve evidence. But when the Stutman firm received a refrigerator fire loss in 2007, preventing spoliation got messy …
The Stutman firm recently brokered a settlement of $5.5 million, of which its clients received the majority of the proceeds. The settlement arose out of a fire caused by the spontaneous combustion …
The Stutman firm recently recovered $300,000 for an insurer of a Spokane, Wash., apartment complex destroyed by a fire that started in the building managerճ apartment on the day she moved in. Was the apartment building's new manager to blame? Or had one of the workmen hired to renovate the apartment before her arrival been negligent? …
The City of Los Angeles recently reached a settlement of more than $600,000 with the Stutman firm over damage to a commercial property on Rodeo Drive caused by a sinkhole …
Stutman attorney Kevin Smith and Michele Litke of Liberty Mutual Insurance are teaming up to present a Continuing Education Workshop at the Property Loss Research Bureauճ (PLRB) 2009 Claims Conference in Seattle, Wash., March 22-25 …
An industrial cage system housing over 100,000 laying hens provided state-of-the-art management for managing a poultry house, including automatic feeding and watering of the chickens, egg collection and manure removal. But a catastrophic collapse led to a difficult and complicated investigation …
2008 News Summaries
The Law Offices of Robert A. Stutman, P.C., recently filed suit against the developer and several contractors building an apartment complex in a Philadelphia suburb after a spectacular fire on Aug. 13 quickly engulfed it and two nearby apartment buildings …
Careful investigation and expert testimony led to a substantial seven-figure settlement in a recent case of the wrongful death of a young Pennsylvania woman …
Supporting a subrogation claim with competent expert testimony is essential to recovery. An article in the Summer issue of the Subrogator, published by the National Association of Subrogation Professionals (NASP)explains how the right expert can turn a good claim into a recoverable one …
Faced with a homeownerճ claim for water damage caused by a break in the supply hose on their insuredճ washing machine, most insurers would pay the insured and move on. After all, damage claims are typically small — an estimated $3,000 to $4,000 nationally — and too trivial to pursue cost-effectively through subrogation. Six years ago, the firm developed a unique, mass tort effort that kept insurers from walking away from property losses like these …
Based on its success in pursuing recoveries for claims resulting from washing machine hose failures, the Stutman firm has organized a mass tort unit to pursue recovery for losses that occur with regularity. This includes toilet tank/supply hoses, fires caused by defective dryers, fans, and metal halide lights …
2007 News Summaries
This article explains how a fire can start from long term exposure to a low level heat source – pyrolysis – and why pyrolysis is still a viable recovery theory even though many subrogation professionals have been reluctant to rely on it …
Cases based in whole or in part on fire spread theories can be established by hard work, persistence and creativity. In January 2007, Stutman attorneys Kevin Smith and Michael Reilly won a multi-million dollar verdict in a complex fire spread case …
More than 100 Albany, N.Y., firefighters responded to a fire in an industrial park that resulted in $6 million in damage. Initial investigations led to arson as the likely cause, and to kids seen fleeing as the likely arsonists Рnot high-value targets for a claims recovery …
The Stutman firm represented insurers in the Riverwalk Apartment Complex fire loss.