Thomas S. Gozdziak

Partner

Tom Gozdziak focuses his practice primarily on first-party property insurance coverage and defense matters.  Tom is experienced in litigating complex, multi-million dollar first-party property insurance coverage disputes.  His cases have involved litigation in numerous state and federal jurisdictions throughout the country, including bench and jury trials.  They have also involved losses that occurred in other countries and the taking of depositions in England, Germany, France and South Africa. 

Tom has experience with all-risk, boiler and machinery, and builder's risk policies, and ISO policies and various manuscript policy forms.  His practice has involved representing admitted carriers, captive insurers, and excess & surplus lines carriers, at primary and excess layers.  Tom advises and represents clients regarding bad faith claims and reinsurance issues.  He has been successful in obtaining subrogation recoveries from responsible parties and contribution recoveries from other insurers.

Tom also handles cases involving architect and engineer professional liability defense.  These cases have involved both serious personal injuries and substantial property losses. 

Tom has developed his litigation skills over the past 15 years.  His ability to use discovery and litigation tools to obtain key evidence from his opponents and narrow the issues in his client's favor, and then persuasively present his client's case, has consistently led to favorable trial and settlement results.  Tom has been successful in achieving favorable results for his clients through the utilization of alternative dispute resolution processes.  

Tom is a former Assistant Attorney General for the State of Illinois. During his four years in the Environmental Enforcement/Asbestos Litigation Division of the Attorney General's Office, he practiced in Illinois circuit courts and before the Illinois Pollution Control Board enforcing the state's environmental laws.  Tom specialized in obtaining injunctions in response to environmental emergencies.  

Representative Matters  

Compagnie des Bauxite de Guinee v. Three Rivers Insurance Company (United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania) (first-party coverage dispute involving repair v. replacement valuation for damaged bauxite material handling equipment and complex business interruption loss measurement issues.  After 3-week trial, jury awarded insured only $270,084 in face of approximately $30 million jury demand.  See additional information in related news entry).

Alpha Chi Omega House Corp. for Sigma Chapter v. Continental Casualty Company (United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa) (first-party coverage dispute involving insured seeking recovery for new parking structure under policy's Increased Cost of Construction coverage following a tornado, when no parking structure existed pre-loss.  Obtained summary judgment in favor of insurer).

Education

  • J.D. The John Marshall Law School, 1995
  • B.S. Accounting, Bradley University, 1990

Bar Admissions

  • Illinois

Court Admissions

  • U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, 1995

Organization Affiliations

  • Chicago Bar Association
  • National Association of Professional Insurance Investigators
  • Western Loss Association
  • The Honorable Order of the Blue Goose, Greater Chicago Pond