Meet Our Team

Steven M. Crane

OF COUNSEL

Steven M. Crane is Of Counsel with Berkes Crane Santana & Spangler LLP. Mr. Crane was a founder of Berkes Crane Robinson & Seal LLP. He has practiced for over forty years as trial and appellate counsel, specializing in complex multi-party civil litigation. He has handled insurance disputes including errors and omissions, directors and officers, professional liability, cyber liability, first party, general and automobile liability, long term care, intellectual property/personal injury, environmental and toxic/mass tort law and product liability, including hazardous waste, pollution, sick buildings, asbestos, breast implants, chemical exposure, electromagnetic fields, lead, and DES. He also handles other complex insurance, commercial, contract, and bad faith litigation.

He has represented clients in hundreds of cases in more than fifteen states and has been trial counsel in several of the largest environmental and asbestos related cases in the country, including:

• Aerojet-General Corporation v. Transport Indemnity Company
  (hazardous waste and toxic torts)

• Flintkote v. American Mutual
  (asbestos building claims)

• Fuller-Austin v. Fireman’s Fund
  (Section 524g asbestos bankruptcy and collusion)

• In Re Coordinated Asbestos Proceedings
  (asbestos bodily injury and building claims)

• Lockheed Corporation v. Continental Insurance Company
  (hazardous waste and toxic torts)

• State of California v. Allstate Insurance Company
  (hazardous waste at Stringfellow site)

Mr. Crane was trial counsel in the National Law Journal’s Defense Verdict of the Year in 1991, and is listed in Chambers USA America’s Leading Business Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America and 25th Anniversary Addition, Who’s Who Legal: California and California Magazine’s Super Lawyers.

Mr. Crane has also been appellate counsel on numerous key appellate cases involving insurance and civil litigation issues, including:

• Aerojet-General Corporation v. Superior Court
  211 Cal.App.3rd 216 (1989) (involving whether CERCLA response costs are “damages” under a CGL policy)

• Aerojet-General Corporation v. Transport Indemnity Company
  17 Cal.4th 38 (1997) (involving whether “site investigation” costs are defense or indemnity under CGL policy and whether defense costs can be allocated to the insured in continuous injury cases)

• Aerojet-General Corporation v. Superior Court
  18 Cal.App.4th 996 (1993) (involving right to use inadvertently produced privileged materials)

• Aerojet-General Corporation v. American Excess Insurance Co.
  97 Cal.App.4th 665 (2002) (involving scope of res judicata/collateral estoppel principles arising from declaratory relief judgments)
• Aerojet-General Corporation v. Transcontinental Insurance Co.
  2002WL1425381 (involving exhaustion requirements for excess policy attachment and affect of primary insurer settlements on exhaustion)
  
• American Motorists, Inc. v. Thomson, Inc.
  2011 WL 380612 (involving choice of law principals as to hazardous waste sites)

• Armstrong World Industries Inc. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co.
  45 Cal.App.4th 1 (1996) (involving trigger and scope of coverage for asbestos bodily injury and asbestos building cases)

• Baek v. Continental Casualty Company
  2014 WL 4966020 Cal.Rptr.3d (involving whether alleged sexual assault falls within the scope of employment or while performing duties related to business for purposes of named insured definition)

• Chacon v. Union Pacific Railroad Company
  56 Cal. App. 5th 565 (2020) (involving the scope of allowable release under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45 U.S.C. Section 55)

• Collin v. CalPortland Company
  228 Cal.App.4th 582 (2014) (involving burden of proof regarding asbestos bodily injury claims)

• Continental Insurance Company v. Cota
  2010 WL 383367; 2009 WL 5088733 (N.D. CAL. 2010) (involving federal preemption of maritime law on state pilotage indemnity statute)

• Continental Insurance Company v. Rockwell Collins, Inc.
  2013 Cal.App. Unpub. Lexis 7805 (involving equitable contribution rights where insured has indemnity obligation under a settlement agreement)