Scott Seaman

Legal career

Seaman is a partner at the law firm of Meckler Bulger Tilson Marick & Pearson LLP in Chicago, Illinois, where he serves as chairman of the firm’s Insurance Coverage Counseling and Litigation practice group. He has been counsel in numerous insurance coverage cases that resulted in important rulings in the insurance law arena. In one case, the Illinois Supreme Court recognized that insurers have due process rights and are entitled to proceedings to contest coverage issues. In an insurance bad faith case, the California Court of Appeals reversed an $11 million verdict against an insurer, finding the insurer acted reasonably and should not be subject to punitive damages or to having to pay the policyholder’s legal fees. In a highly publicized case, the New York Court of Appeals held that each asbestos claim asserted against General Electric constituted a single occurrence, precluding it from accessing its excess insurance policies. In another case, the Delaware Supreme Court held that insurers had no duty to defend or indemnify a tobacco company with respect to tobacco personal injury claims based upon policy exclusions.

Seaman has been counsel in several cases involving allocation of large losses among insurers and policyholders, including the landmark New Jersey Supreme Court Owens Illinois v. United Ins. Ltd. case. The issue of allocation concerns how losses are divided among various insurers and the policyholder. The issue is most commonly presented in "long tail" or latent injury claims such as asbestos bodily injury claims or environmental property damage claims, where there is a delay between exposure to a substance and resulting injury or damage. Seaman is co-author of one of the leading insurance and reinsurance treatises: Allocation of Losses in Complex Insurance Coverage Cases (Thomson Reuters 2010), by S.M. Seaman and J.R. Schulze. This book was relied upon by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in its recent insurance coverage decision on allocation. Seaman also is involved in global warming claims and insurance coverage issues, co-authoring a leading article on the subject "Emerging Issues: Global Warming Claims And Coverage Issues" and serving on the Defense Research Institute’s Climate Change Litigation Task Force. He is a past Vice Chair of the American Bar Association Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section’s Excess, Surplus Lines and Reinsurance Committee. He has received numerous distinctions.

Cancer advocacy

Seaman is a cancer survivor, having been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in his mid-30s. He became an advocate for people diagnosed with cancer as a volunteer. He helped to establish the Chicago Chapter of the Lymphoma Research Foundation and spearhead a 5K walk and run to raise awareness and money for cancer research known as the Lymphomathon, which originated in Chicago and is now in more than 18 cities. He went on to co-found Chicago Blood Cancer Foundation. He is co-author of “Battling and Beating Cancer - The Cancer Survivor Book.” "Battling and Beating Cancer - The Cancer Survival Book" Discussed On Comcast Newsmakers and co-hosts "Battling and Beating Cancer," a radio show on blog talk radio. A television series by the same title features leading physicians and researchers providing information about blood cancer. He also writes for the Examiner on-line newspaper, serving as the National Cancer Examiner and Chicago Cancer Examiner.

Jefferson Awards/Leadership Training

Seaman serves on the National Board of Selectors of the Jefferson Awards for Public service, which was founded in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, U.S. Senator Robert Taft, Jr., and Sam Beard to create a Nobel Prize for public and community service. He is involved in a program that trains high school students in leadership and ethical decision-making and helped launch a program to reduce obesity in school children and promote healthy diet and exercise.

Partial list of publications