Education
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New York Law School, J.D., magna cum laude, 1983
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University of Florida, B.S., 1979
Bar Admissions
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District of Columbia
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New York
Court Admissions
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U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 10th and 11th Circuits
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District of Columbia Court of Appeals
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U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
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U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan
Awards and Honors
Nominee for "Washington’s Best Lawyer" (Washington Business Journal), 2004
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Mr. Schryber is an insurance law litigator and appellate lawyer of national distinction, and the founder of Patton Boggs’ Indemnification and Cost Recovery practice group.
Representing a wide range of major corporate and individual policyholders in every region of the country, Mr. Schryber has won precedent-setting decisions over the last 25 years against insurance companies in multiple federal and state appellate courts, as well as at the trial court level. Mr. Schryber has prosecuted the rights of policyholders and beneficiaries of private indemnity agreements in connection with coverage disputes of every kind, including disputes over coverage for claims of trademark infringement, CERCLA liability, breach of corporate fiduciary duty, violations of securities laws, Ponzi-scheme conversion, predatory subprime mortgage lending, forgery, defective building construction, racial discrimination, and products liability.
Currently, Mr. Schryber is counsel for the manufacturer of the active ingredient in heparin in the coverage litigation spawned by this massive products liability litigation. Mr. Schryber has filed suits against multiple liability insurers in multiple jurisdictions seeking compensatory damages for breach of contract and punitive damages for insurer bad faith.
Mr. Schryber also is coverage counsel for a major former subprime lender, now in Chapter 11. In that bankruptcy proceeding, Mr. Schryber has filed suit against the lender’s "banker's professional liability" insurer for repudiating, in bad faith, the insurer’s obligations to indemnify liability incurred in connection with claims brought by a state attorney general, allegedly on behalf of more than 6,000 borrowers, seeking more than $20 million in damages for “predatory lending.”
Mr. Schryber, who has never lost an appeal, most recently won a reversal on an appeal for his client Estee Lauder, Inc. in a precedent-setting decision by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York. On February 19, 2009, the Court held that an insurer owes a duty to provide timely, specific and non-selective disclosure of all known policy defenses and waives any that it fails to disclose. The Court then granted environmental coverage to Mr. Schryber’s client under a lost policy based on the terms of a policy that renewed the lost policy.
In another victory via a reversal on appeal to the Third Circuit, Mr. Schryber established in Houbigant, Inc. v. Federal Ins. Co., No. 03-1286 (3d Cir. July 6, 2004) that a standard commercial general liability does provide coverage for liability for trademark infringement, and such coverage exists even where the infringing conduct also may constitute a breach by the insured of a licensing agreement. In a decision that the insurer haled as having “nationwide” impact , the Court rejected the law that had been followed by other courts holding that trademark infringement was excluded from coverage.
In 2005, Mr. Schryber won a reversal from the Eleventh Circuit that established that an insurer’s communications concerning whether or not to provide coverage are not protected under the attorney-client privilege or the work product immunity.
In 1995 and 1998, Mr. Schryber won rulings on successive appeals taken in In re Donald Sheldon & Co., Inc., in which the Second Circuit ultimately ruled that a SIPC trustee represented by Mr. Schryber was entitled to recover, from a Directors & Officers (D&O) insurance policy, a $16 million jury verdict that Mr. Schryber had won against the president of a failed broker-dealer.
At the trial court level, Mr. Schryber has won numerous rulings of import for policyholders. Most recently, Mr. Schryber argued and won rulings from the Southern District of New York in December 2008 and February 2009 establishing that an insurer’s obligation to advance defense expenses under a D&O policy to a major restaurant chain extended both to claims for relief within the lawsuit that are covered and those that have been found to be excluded from coverage.
Another recent victory was earned in September 2008 when Mr. Schryber’s client was awarded summary judgment by the District of Maryland on the issue of whether the insurer owed and breached the duty to defend a “PRP” proceeding. Mr. Schryber successfully argued that the broad language of the EPA’s letter allowed for the possibility that the discharge at issue was “sudden and accidental.” Industrial Enterprises, Inc. v. PennAmerica Ins. Co., 2008 US Dist Lexis 67657 (D. Md. September 2, 2008).
Mr. Schryber’s experience includes managing large litigations – and trying cases – involving issues of indemnification and cost recovery. For example, Mr. Schryber was lead counsel in a recently-settled lawsuit brought under a private indemnity agreement governing liabilities for an oil spill claimed to exceed $100 million (Pepco, Inc. v. ST Services, Inc. et al., No. 02-4076 (D.Md.)). Mr. Schryber also won a reversal in the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division which made front-page headlines in the New York Law Journal on January 24, 2003. In Houbigant, Inc. v. Deloitte & Touche, LLP, 303 A.D.2d 92, 753 N.Y.S.2d 493 (1st Dep't 2003) the Court upheld the validity of a claim of accounting fraud interposed by Mr. Schryber’s client against a Big Four auditor. Currently, Mr. Schryber is lead counsel for investors in a highly-publicized Ponzi-scheme case. He has acted as plaintiff’s counsel and as defendant’s counsel in securities litigation, corporate fiduciary litigation, environmental litigation, and accounting fraud litigation.
Mr. Schryber has lectured here and abroad on the subject of the applicability of liability insurance policies to various subprime claims. In July 2008, Mr. Schryber was a presenter at “The Explosion in U.S. Subprime Litigation & Regulatory Initiatives: Implications for European Market Participants” in London. The topic on which Mr. Schryber presented was Mining Liability Insurance Policies to Cover Subprime Losses. He also is a contributing author to a treatise on subprime litigation (and related insurance-coverage issues), entitled Mortgage and Asset Backed Securities Litigation Handbook.
In October 2008, Mr. Schryber was a presenter at the annual meeting of the Association of Corporate Counsel on the subject of “Maximizing Insurance Coverage in Commercial Disputes.”
Before joining Patton Boggs, LLP, Mr. Schryber litigated for the New York law firm of Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler.
Professional Affiliations:
American Bar Association
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