Chris Kolos

Chris N. Kolos specializes in toxic tort cases, products liability, personal injury cases and environmental litigation. He has defended several Fortune 500 companies in cases involving asbestos, PCB's, benzene, pesticides, mercury and other industrial chemicals. He serves as national coordinating counsel as well as regional trial counsel. He also defends insurers in bad faith and insurance coverage cases.

Recent successes include:

• winning a summary judgment in a declaratory judgment action for an insurer against two co-insurers regarding priority of coverage and the duty to defend a mutual insured in a battle over "other insurance" clauses in the respective policies

• winning a summary judgment for an insurer in a declaratory judgment action holding that a vendor of a named insured is not an additional insured under a CGL policy where the vendor distributes and leases goods of the named insured but does not re-sell them
• winning a summary judgment for an insurer in a bad faith case establishing a rule that where an insurance company timely pays a claim but fails to meet non-monetary conditions in an offer resulting in the loss of an opportunity to settle a claim filed against its insured that would exceed policy limits, that still does not establish bad faith as a matter of law
• winning a summary judgment in a declaratory judgment action for an insurer based on the intentional acts/expected injury exclusion in a case alleging gross negligence which was “substantially certain” to result in injury
• winning a summary judgment in a declaratory judgment action applying Florida law to a multi-state/multi-risk insurance policy issued in Ohio such as to bar the claim under Florida law
• winning a summary judgment upholding an assumption of the risk/release of liability clause relative to a management training teamwork/physical challenge course
• winning a defense verdict in a mesothelioma case tried in Florida relative to automotive friction products
• winning an appeal that quashed an asbestos omnibus order which allowed for an accelerated trial of a living plaintiff with mesothelioma to be conducted within three months of the filing date and ordered the trial court to strictly enforce the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure with respect to a case being at issue and ready to be tried