Nickname: Lew
Contact Info
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Phone: 404.504.7762
Fax: 404.365.9532
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Lewis E. Hassett is Chair of the firm’s Litigation Practice and serves on the firm’s Executive Committee. Mr. Hassett brings over 30 years of business counseling and litigation experience covering contracts, real estate and financing, insurance and reinsurance, RICO and consumer class actions. Mr. Hassett has been named a “Super Lawyer” in business litigation and has been listed in Georgia Trend Magazine’s “Legal Elite.”
Mr. Hassett also is Co-Chair of the firm’s Insurance and Reinsurance Practice. Mr. Hassett’s insurance practice concentrates on complex civil litigation involving insurance and reinsurance matters, including coverage disputes, insurance product issues, agency matters, title insurance and title issues, investment disputes, business torts, RICO claims, class actions and insurer insolvencies. Mr. Hassett has been named to Euromoney’s Guide of the World’s Leading Insurance and Reinsurance Lawyers.
Mr. Hassett has extensive experience in complex and multiple parallel actions, in pre-trial, trial and appellate advocacy, and in arbitrations. Mr. Hassett’s investment practice covers disputes regarding real estate and other investments, including creditor and contract issues. Mr. Hassett’s insurer insolvency practice includes the representation of receivers, reinsurers and acquiring insurers. Mr. Hassett has been appointed to represent insurance commissioners in various insurer insolvency matters.
Mr. Hassett is on the Editorial Board of the Insurance Law and Litigation Week, published by Strafford Legal Publications; is on the Editorial Board of the Insurance Coverage Law Bulletin, published by American Law Media, is on the Editorial Board of Reinsurance published by Harris Martin; and is the Eleventh Circuit editor for the most recent Handbook on Insurer Insolvency, published by the American Bar Association. Mr. Hassett is a frequent speaker on insurance and reinsurance matters and has served on the faculty at training seminars for reinsurance arbitrators organized by ARIAS-US. Appointed by Governor Roy Barnes in 2002, Mr. Hassett has served on the Board of Commissioners of the Georgia Commission on Equal Opportunity. He has also served on the Board of Trustees of Orchestra Atlanta. Mr. Hassett has been inducted as a Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, an invitation-only litigation honorary society consisting of less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers.
Recent Representative Transactions
- Represents several automobile insurers in putative class actions in multiple states regarding ancillary products.
- Represented national trade association in multi-district litigation with an agency over a sponsored insurance program.
- Represented managing general agencies and claim administrators in multiple cases with insurance companies involving allegations of misconduct and negligence.
- Represented captive reinsurer in dispute with two governmental liability pools relating to losses and allocations thereof.
- Represented insurer in action alleging fraudulent concealment of insurance coverage and RICO. Our motion to dismiss on the merits was granted and affirmed on appeal.
- Represented an automobile insurer in a case alleging fraudulent concealment of insurance coverage following deaths of four teenagers. The case settled under confidential terms with the record sealed.
- Represented AD&D insurer in dispute with reinsurer over travel coverages. Settled favorably under confidential terms.
- Represented numerous insurers in claims seeking to pierce policy limits on the grounds that the insurer refused to settle in bad faith.
- Represented several insurers in market conduct proceedings before the insurance department.
- Represented trade associations in putative class actions alleging fraud and misappropriation of opportunities in connection with sponsored insurance programs. Cases settled favorably on confidential terms with class certification.
- Represented reinsurer in rescission claim involving facultative environmental certificates. Gulf Ins. Co. v. United Nat’l Ins. Co., Case No. 2003 CV 72574 (Fulton Sup. Ct., Ga.). Case settled on confidential terms.
- Represented commercial property owners in claims for losses along Mississippi coast from Hurricane Katrina. See e.g., SIMA / Signature Lake, L.P. v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd’s of London, 2006 WL 3538862 (S.D. Miss. 2006) (granting our motion for partial summary judgment). Cases then settled on confidential terms.
- Represented commercial brokers, managing general underwriters and claims administrators in coverage disputes under professional liability coverages. Some settled favorably under confidential terms; others remain pending.
- Represented electric utility in property and loss income claim arising from generator explosions. Associated Electric Cooperative, Inc. v. New Hampshire Ins. Co., Case No. 06-3261-CV-5-DW (U.S.D.C., W.D. Mo.). Case settled on confidential terms.
- Represented health insurer in coverage claims involving paraplegia and renal cancer treatments. Cases settled favorably on confidential terms.
Honors and Affiliations
Selected, Client Service All-Star Standout by BTI Consulting, 2011
Selected, 2012 Super Lawyer (National) in Business Litigation
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