Jennifer Kennedy-Coggins

Jennifer A. Kennedy-Coggins concentrates her practice in civil litigation and is a member in the firm’s Atlanta office. She has experience in litigating a wide variety of civil and commercial matters, including matters pertaining to construction defect, premises liability, mass and complex torts, transportation injuries, products liability, insurance coverage, and extracontractual disputes, including defending bad faith claims.

In the insurance coverage arena, Jennifer regularly advises commercial general liability, property, professional liability, and casualty carriers on various coverage issues, and often defends insureds under commercial policies. Jennifer has significant experience litigating, negotiating, and advising insurers through complex insurance coverage and bad faith disputes.

Areas litigated include multi-million dollar coverage disputes involving primary and excess commercial property policies and third-party coverage disputes involving primary and excess liability policies.  Jennifer regularly defends insurance carriers in litigation and pursues declaratory judgments on their behalf.

Jennifer’s defense practice includes cases involving premises liability, products liability, construction defect, automobile liability, trucking liability, and general liability. Jennifer’s experience in premises liability routinely involve property hazards, such as slip and falls and criminal attacks.

Jennifer also frequently defends contractors against construction defect and injury claims. Jennifer knows very well the tender and indemnity issues involved in these cases and routinely assists companies in determining where the risk of liability can be shared or absolved completely.

She has further dealt with high-profile cases, which garnered extensive media attention, including a construction defect case involving potentially hundreds of firefighters allegedly injured by mold exposure. Jennifer successfully persuaded the court in this case to enjoin the opposing parties from further contacting and discussing the case with the media.

Jennifer serves as the Atlanta office’s pro bono coordinator and routinely participates in providing pro bono services through cooperation with the Georgia Legal Services Program and the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyer’s Foundation’s Saturday Lawyer’s program. Jennifer’s pro bono activities focus in the family law arena, most commonly providing assistance to those seeking a divorce, child custody modifications, and adoption.

Jennifer earned her Bachelor of Arts from Mercer University in 2000 and her law degree, cum laude, with a legal writing certificate, from Mercer University, Walter F. George School of Law in 2004. While in law school, she served as administrative editor of the Mercer Law Review and was a member of the moot court board, the Association of Women Law Students, and served as a volunteer court appointed special advocate.

EXPERIENCE :

• Assisted in obtaining summary judgment in favor of client insurer under a commercial general liability policy involving an underlying claim by the insured developer for alleged property damage as a result of silt and sediment runoff. Summary judgment granted on the grounds the damages were precluded by the pollution exclusion.
• Assisted in obtaining summary judgment in favor of client insurance agency against claims of negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty made by insurance agency’s client. The summary judgment ruling was upheld on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit.
• Second chair at the trial of a case in federal district court where the insurer’s damages were successfully limited in a first party property exposure case, involving claims of rescission and violations of a policy’s conditions of coverage.
• Assisted in obtaining extremely favorable settlement for client hotel management company in a premises liability case involving a shower seat detaching from the wall and allegedly significantly injuring the plaintiff.
• Successfully obtained summary judgment in favor of client security company in negligent premises liability case filed by an individual who sustained injuries during a robbery.

EDUCATION :

• Mercer University—Walter F. George School of Law, J.D., cum laude, 2004

BAR ADMISSIONS : Georgia

COURT ADMISSIONS :

• Georgia Court of Appeals
• Georgia Superior Court
• Georgia Supreme Court
• U.S. District Court — Middle District of Georgia
• U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

AFFILIATIONS :

• Defense Research Institute
• Georgia Association of Women Lawyers
• Georgia Bar Association
• Georgia Defense Lawyer’s Association