Christina Salem
Christina.Salem@kennedyslaw.com
+1 212 832 4920
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Profile
Education
- Fordham University School of Law, JD, 2003
- The George Washington University, BBA (magna cum laude), 2000
Christina is a partner in the New York office and her practice focuses on insurance coverage analysis, providing opinions and claim/underwriting counseling, preparing coverage positions and litigating state and federal coverage disputes at the trial and appellate levels.
Christina is highly skilled in handling nationwide complex insurance matters involving primary, excess and multi-tower coverage. She has expertise in a spectrum of lines, including professional liability, errors and omissions, directors’ and officers’ liability, employment practices liability, management liability, fiduciary liability, commercial general liability, environmental liability, asbestos and reinsurance. She has also served as coverage and monitoring counsel for professional liability insurers for nationwide class, derivative and individual actions.
Having secured favorable insurer legal precedent on a spectrum of issues, Christina’s case wins include court rulings on the lack of defense and indemnity coverage, the insured’s defense cost contribution obligation, the insured’s failure to cooperate and allocation.
Christina graduated with honors from The George Washington University with a dual undergraduate degree and received her law degree from Fordham University School of Law. While at Fordham, Christina was a legal intern at the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and for the Honorable William G. Bassler, United States District Court, District of New Jersey. Additionally, Christina served as Editor-in-Chief of Volume 8 of the Fordham Journal of Corporate and Financial Law.
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Qualifications and admissions
- New Jersey
- New York
- US District Court, New Jersey
- US District Court, Eastern and Southern Districts of New York
- US Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
Work highlights
- Achieved New Jersey Federal Court ruling denying the insureds’ Motion to Amend the Complaint to assert bad faith and breach of consumer fraud claims against insurer in insureds’ DJ seeking defense and indemnity coverage under Lawyers Professional Liability Policy for underlying lawsuit alleging insureds’ participation in illegal kickback scheme.
- Achieved New York State Trial and Appellate Division rulings carving out exception to an insurer’s broad duty to defend and mandating an insured’s defense cost contribution obligation for long-tail asbestos claims spanning many years and implicating several CGL policy periods.
- Achieved Eastern District of New York ruling denying purported third-party beneficiary’s motion to intervene in federal coverage professional liability lawsuit on the grounds that intervention as of right, or permissive intervention, has not been met, thus establishing favorable insurer Federal New York precedent heightening the requirement for alleged beneficiaries attempting to intervene and assert coverage claims in an insurer’s coverage lawsuit with its insured.
- Achieved Florida State Court of Appeals ruling vacating an insured’s improperly obtained judgment procured through fraud, misrepresentations and other misconduct in an effort to implicate Professional Liability Policy.
- Achieved Florida Federal District Court and Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals rulings barring defense and indemnity coverage under Title Agents Professional Liability Policy for allegations concerning insured’s intentional/negligent acts and alleged theft of escrow funds for failure to satisfy the policy’s insuring agreement, claim reporting and cancellation provisions and application of dishonest/fraudulent, conversion, breach of contract and willful/intentional acts exclusions.
- Achieved New Jersey State Trial and Appellate Division rulings barring defense and indemnity coverage under CGL policy for negligence, breach of contract, breach of warranty and breach of Consumer Fraud Act claims implicating insured contractor’s improper design and installation of fire suppression system.
- Litigated and subsequently secured voluntary dismissal of Professional Liability Insurer that issued policies to insured national financial bank for insured’s coverage lawsuit seeking defense and indemnity for underlying nationwide suits and government investigations concerning the insured’s alleged wrongful acts with the sale of force-placed insurance, charges of excessively inflated premiums, and paying improper kickbacks to its lender clients.
Presentations and publications
- “The duty to defend v. the duty to indemnify,” presented to the New York City Association of Insurance Women (July 2024)
- “Document and file management,” In-House Client Training (October 2023)
- “Conquering coverage concerns,” In-House Client Training (February 2023)
- “Protected Coverage Position Letters,” presented for NYCAIW/Client Training (January 2022)
- “Good Faith Claims and Defense Handling,” presented for NYCAIW/Client Training (December 2020)
- “A Guide Through Alternative Dispute Resolution,” presented for NYCAIW/Client Training (November 2019)
Report decisions
- Arzadi, et al. v. Evanston Ins. Co., 2021 WL 1712527 (D.N.J. Apr. 29, 2021)
- First Mercury Insurance Co. v. Law Office of Kenneth B. Schwartz, et al., 2019 WL 8356254 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 4, 2019)
- North River Ins. Co. v. Duro Dyne Nat'l Corp., 153 A.D.3d 844 (N.Y. App. Div. 2d Dep't 2017)
- Gotham Ins. Co. v. Matthew, 179 So.3d 437 (Fla. 5th Dist. Ct. App. 2015)
- Selective Ins. Co. v. Hospicomm, Inc., 2014 WL 4722776 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Sept. 24, 2014)
- Lake Buena Vista Vacation Resort, L.C. v. Gotham Ins. Co., 2013 WL 5532677 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 7, 2013), aff'd 595 Fed. Appx. 914 (11th Cir. 2014)
Insurance and reinsurance