Linda D. Kornfeld

After law school, Kornfeld wanted to do securities litigation. But when insurance recovery lawyer Kirk A. Pasich was looking for associates, she decided to join and has stayed in the field ever since.

Kornfeld is now vice president at Blank Rome’s insurance recovery practice and she has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of her clients.

She represented Pennsylvania State University in its effort to compel its underwriters to pay for the $100 million it spent compensating victims of retired football coach Jerry Sandusky’s long pattern of serial child sex abuse. About $60 million was at issue. United Educators Insurance v. The Pennsylvania State University, 1:17-cv-03553 (S.D. N.Y., filed May 12, 2017).

“We ended up in a two-week arbitration trial in New York last November, and we ended up with a successful result at the end of that process in February,” Kornfeld said.

Kornfeld has also worked with Cottage Health System Inc., a Central California hospital network, in the first nationwide lawsuit regarding coverage for a data breach event.

The issue concerned how to interpret insurance policies aimed at covering data breaches. The case received attention as it was the first cyber policy litigation.

The amount in dispute was around $4 million. Cottage Health Systems Inc. v. Columbia Casualty Co., 16CV02310 (Santa Barbara Super. Ct., filed May 31, 2016).

After completing discovery in March, Kornfeld and her team filed motions for summary judgment.

“We had a Zoom mediation and that was my first Zoom mediation,” Kornfeld said. “And we achieved a very positive result for the hospital through the mediation process.”

Since the pandemic, Kornfeld said that there hadn’t been a lot of thought about how business interruption policies apply to situations that the coronavirus has caused.

“I’ve spent probably 80% of my time reading insurance policies and evaluating them as we learn more and more about this virus and its nature,” Kornfeld said. “I’m advising clients and coordinating with insurers about what the words mean and why there is coverage here as the insurance industry is fighting hard and saying there is not.”

— Henrik Nilsson