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Jonathan Small is a member of the firm’s Litigation Section and Insurance + Reinsurance Group. His complex commercial litigation practice regularly brings him into Massachusetts trial and appellate courts on behalf of insurance companies, real estate developers, and other businesses. His interest in appellate practice began in law school when, as a student attorney at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Public Representation, he wrote an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the AARP in U.S. Supreme Court case Warner-Lambert v. Kent, 128 S. Ct. 1168 (2008).

Jonathan has defended clients against bad faith and unfair trade practice claims brought under state consumer protection statutes, including the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act (Chapter 93A). He has successfully argued dispositive motions in federal and state trial courts, and defended those rulings on appeal. He has also defended clients in class action lawsuits and defeated attempts at class certification at the trial and appellate levels.

Jonathan grew up in the greater Boston area in Easton, Massachusetts. He attended College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he earned his undergraduate degree and majored in philosophy. After graduating from Holy Cross, Jonathan served as an AmeriCorps VISTA supporting low income communities in Miami-Dade County, Florida. He then matriculated at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, where he was a staff editor of the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy, competed in mock trial as a member of the Barristers’ Council, was named a Global Law Scholars Program fellow, and served as a research assistant to Professor Charles R. Lawrence, III. Following law school, Jonathan clerked for the Honorable Lynn Leibovitz of the District of Columbia Superior Court. After the clerkship, he worked at Goulston & Storrs in Boston before moving to Connecticut with his family and joining Robinson+Cole.

Employers sometimes have more than one workers’ compensation policy that provides coverage for the same loss. When more than one policy covers a loss, the employer may have an incentive to intentionally tender the claim to one insurer and not the other. This is called selective tender. When the insured makes a selective tender, can the “chosen” insurer seek contribution from the non-chosen insurer? Yes, in Massachusetts.

The Supreme Judicial Court, on a question certified to it by the First Circuit Court of Appeals, recently held in Insurance Co. of the State of Pennsylvania v. Great Northern Insurance Co., 473 Mass. 745 (2016), that an employer’s selective tender of a claim to one of its insurers did not foreclose the insurer from obtaining an equitable contribution from the other insurer to whom the claim was not tendered. The ruling rejects the minority of jurisdictions that have recognized a selective tender exception to equitable contribution doctrine.
Continue Reading Selective Tender Exception to Equitable Contribution Doctrine in Massachusetts Addressed By Supreme Judicial Court