After a constructive relationship with the Defendants for over seventy years, the University is reluctantly forced to file this action due to Defendants’ continuing, obstructive conduct, all to the University’s detriment. This is an insurance coverage action seeking both damages and declaratory relief relating to the Defendants’ refusal to honor their contractual obligations under four decades of insurance policies that require Defendants to pay for the defense, settlements, and/or judgments in connection with hundreds of claims against the University.
For more than seventy years, Defendants have benefited from their business relationship with the University, a model policyholder that consistently paid its premiums over time, while filing few claims. Now, when the University is in need of coverage for which it has fully paid, Defendants have disregarded and continue to disregard their fiduciary and contractual duties to the University, while impeding, obstructing, and delaying the resolution of the underlying claims at issue.
With the recent passage of the New York Child Victims Act (“CVA”), which revives child sexual abuse claims that are otherwise barred by expired limitations periods, the University has received several hundred separate claims for damages from survivors of alleged childhood sexual abuse by Dr. Reginald Archibald, a former University employee (the “Underlying Claims”). These claims occurred decades ago from approximately the 1940s to 1980s. Dr. Archibald passed away in 2007. During the CVA’s one-year revival window beginning in August 2019, the University anticipates that it will receive additional claims, including civil actions filed in court. The Underlying Claims represent the type of substantial potential liability for which the University purchased insurance in the first place.
Despite this, the Defendants have failed to provide assistance and support in dealing with the Underlying Claims to which the University is entitled based on its payment of four decades of premiums. To the contrary, the Defendants not only have refused to assist in the costs of defense or settlement, but also have impeded the University’s efforts to address the Underlying Claims, which actions by the Defendants have been to the University’s detriment as well as to the claimants. In particular, the primary insurers, Travelers and Chubb, have steadfastly refused to consent to the University settling a single one of the Underlying Claims in advance of litigation, and have repeatedly rejected the University’s requests to contribute to the costs of claims already settled and to make payments already due and owing under their policies.
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