.

Michael A. Packer

Office Managing Attorney

Co-Chair, Insurance Services Practice Group

MAPacker@mdwcg.com

Portrait of Michael A. Packer

Marshall Dennehey Promotes James Cole and Sunny Sparano to Lead The Firm’s Professional Liability Department and Announces New Board of Directors Appointments

January 5, 2026

Marshall Dennehey announced today that James H. Cole has been appointed Director of the firm’s 140+ attorney Professional Liability Department and Sunny Marie Sparano has been appointed Assistant Director. Cole is succeeding Craig S. Hudson as department director as well as a member of the firm’s Board of Directors. Hudson will remain with the firm in an Emeritus role. The announcements were made following the firm’s shareholders’ meeting on December 9 and take effect January 1, 2026.

“There is no doubt in my mind that Jim and Sunny will be successful in leading and growing our award-winning Professional Liability Department,” said Marshall Dennehey President & CEO, G. Mark Thompson. “Their proven expertise and the respect they command within the department and across the firm ensures we will continue delivering exceptional results for our professional liability clients.”

Cole, who has served as the department’s assistant director since 2021, joined Marshall Dennehey in 1999 after nearly a decade as a claims professional with a national insurance carrier. His first-hand understanding of property and casualty insurance afforded him a true head start in the nuances of claims settlements, insurance risk and litigation, and he ascended to lead the firm’s Insurance Services; Property Litigation; and Fraud/Special Investigation Practice Groups.

Resident in the firm’s Philadelphia office, Cole is a nationally recognized authority on insurance law, frequently speaking at leading conferences on property damage, insurance fraud, and bad faith topics. For the past several years, he has been a featured presenter at many prominent insurance industry events including the Pennsylvania Insurance Fraud Conference and the Property & Liability Resource Bureau (PLRB) conference. An active member of the Claims & Litigation Management Alliance (CLM), he serves as faculty for CLM’s Claims College, School of Property, where he helped shape curriculum on good faith claims handling and coverage issues. Cole holds an AV‑Preeminent rating from Martindale‑Hubbell and is listed among the Best Lawyers in America for Insurance Law. He earned his law degree from Temple University Beasley School of Law in 1999 and his undergraduate degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1990, and is admitted to practice in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Sparano joined Marshall Dennehey’s Roseland, NJ office in 2005 and chairs the firm’s Architectural, Engineering and Construction Defect Litigation Practice Group where she oversees a firm-wide team of attorneys who defend design and construction professionals in complex construction defect suits. She is additionally a member of the firm’s Board of Directors. 

Among her numerous professional activities, Sparano is a member of the New Jersey State, New York State and Essex County Bar Associations, and is a frequent speaker at various construction defect conferences, including the annual West Coast Casualty Construction Defect Conference.
 
Rated AV Preeminent by Martindale-Hubbell, she is recognized by the Best Lawyers in America organization for Construction Litigation. A graduate of Seton Hall University and Widener University School of Law, she is admitted to practice in New Jersey and New York.

Additional Board Appointments
Matthew S. Schorr, Executive Committee member and Director of the firm’s Casualty Department, replaces Hudson as Chairman of the firm’s Board of Directors. Since joining the firm in 2008, Schorr has held a series of key leadership roles, including Regional Managing Attorney of the Casualty Department for Northern New Jersey and New York; Assistant Director of the Casualty Department; Director of the Casualty Department; and ultimately Executive Committee member in 2024.

Additionally, shareholders Steven M. Christman and Michael A. Packer have been elected to the firm’s Board. They will serve three-year terms effective January 1, 2026.

Christman is the Managing Attorney of the firm’s New York City office where he defends insureds and self-insureds in a variety of complex casualty liability matters. His background in insurance coverage litigation encompasses the representation of both reinsurers and excess insurers. He also serves as supervisor of the office’s casualty litigation. A graduate of Providence College and the University of Dayton School of Law, he is admitted to practice in New York. 

Packer is the Managing Attorney of the firm’s Fort Lauderdale office and co-chairs the firm’s Insurance Services Practice Group. He has almost 25 years of experience defending property insurers throughout Florida in first party coverage matters, and provides coverage analysis and opinions of third party claims. He is a graduate of the State University of Albany and the University of Miami School of Law. He is admitted to practice in Florida.
 

2026 PL New Leadership

Firm Highlights

Thought Leadership

The Search-Incident-to-Arrest Doctrine Does Not License Strip Searches

In Beatty v. Gardner, No. 25-2860 (3d Cir. Sept. 16, 2026), Kyle Beatty sued police officers Clinton Gardner and Calvin Irvin under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after they stopped, arrested, and searched him three times during a drug investigation in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The officers initially smelled marijuana coming from the car in which Beatty was sitting and observed marijuana residue, giving them probable cause to arrest him. Beatty consented to the first pat-down, and the second search was conducted incident to his lawful arrest; neither search uncovered weapons or contraband. The officers then transported Beatty to the police station solely to strip-search him, but the strip search also revealed nothing. The District Court granted the officers summary judgment, concluding that the initial stop, arrest, and first two searches were reasonable and that qualified immunity protected the officers from liability for the strip search. The Third Circuit affirmed, but held that the strip search itself violated the Fourth Amendment. The court concluded that the search-incident-to-arrest doctrine does not automatically permit officers to strip-search an arrestee outside the jail or prison setting. Because strip searches are highly intrusive and the traditional justifications for searches incident to arrest (officer safety and preservation of evidence) did not justify the search of Beatty, the officers generally needed either the arrestee’s consent, exigent circumstances, or a warrant supported by probable cause to believe that a search beneath the clothing would reveal weapons, contraband, or evidence. Here, the officers had none of those justifications. Nevertheless, the court held that qualified immunity barred damages liability because, at the time of the search, the right against a warrantless strip search of an arrestee outside the institutional setting was not clearly established by Supreme Court or Third Circuit precedent. The court likewise upheld qualified immunity on Beatty’s First Amendment retaliation claim and affirmed summary judgment for the officers.

business meeting photo

Result

Summary Judgment Obtained in Insurance Coverage Case

Defense Victory Obtained in Workers’ Compensation Case

Result

Defense Victory Obtained in Workers’ Compensation Case

Thought Leadership

Two Tracks, No Preclusion: Ohio Supreme Court Preserves Separate Damages Claims After Chapter 2506 Appeals

The Supreme Court of Ohio has clarified that an administrative appeal under Ohio Revised Code Chapter 2506 does not bar a separate action for damages and declaratory relief that could not have been pursued in the administrative appeal. The Ohio Supreme Court considered Sheetz, Inc. v. Centerville (2026-Ohio-3531) as a result of a certified question from the Southern District of Ohio. The question was whether Sheetz, the gas station/convenience store brand, was barred from seeking damages in a separate action since damages were not sought in their administrative appeal. Ultimately, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that res judicata does not bar a separate action for damages after ruling on an administrative appeal because R.C. Chapter 2506 is limited to judicial review and cannot grant affirmative relief. The case arose after Centerville’s city council rejected a site plan proposed by Sheetz, Inc. that had received unanimous approval from the City’s planning commission. Sheetz filed an administrative appeal pursuant to R.C. 2506 in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, and two months later filed a complaint for damages and declaratory relief under 42 USC § 1983 as a takings action with the city, city council, and other objectors as improper takings and a violation of due process, as well as interference with business and contractual relationship. The city and city council removed the § 1983 action for damages to federal court. Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas reversed the city council’s denial, and allowed the Sheetz project to move forward. Upon that ruling, the federal court issued a show-cause order questioning whether the § 1983 action was barred by the doctrine of res judicata via claim preclusion (which includes all theories of recovery).  Sheetz argued that Ohio courts of common pleas do not have authority to award damages or declaratory relief as party of the R.C. Ch. 2506 appeal, therefore res judicata could not be triggered to apply to the § 1983 action. Additionally, Sheetz moved to certify the issue to the Ohio Supreme Court, citing differing results between the second and sixth districts on this same issue. Centerville approached the question, not from a claim preclusion standpoint, but from the holding in Grava v. Parkman, Twp which states that a final judgment rendered on the merits bars all subsequent action based on the same transaction or occurrence.  In yet another approach, an objector argued that claim preclusion was satisfied because Sheetz could have raised its damages claims in the administrative appeal – Sheetz disagrees. In their analysis, the Supreme Court of Ohio broke down the elements of a claim preclusion analysis: 1) a prior final, valid decision on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction; (2) a second action involving the same parties, or their privies, as the first; (3) a second action raising claims that were or could have been litigated in the first action; and (4) a second action arising out of the transaction or occurrence that was the subject matter of the previous action. The Court held that R.C. Ch. 2506 does not permit a party to argue damages as R.C. Ch. 2506 limits the common pleas jurisdiction as if it were sitting on appeal, and therefore can only affirm, reverse, vacate, or modify the appealed order, or can remand the case to the administrative body. Further, the Court held that Grava’s conclusion that a final judgment precludes additional litigation for different relief is inapplicable under this fact pattern because it was meant only to apply to those matters in which the plaintiff brings the exact same case twice, but for new relief. The Court found Grava was inapplicable because Sheetz could have requested damages or declaratory relief in the R.C. 2506 appeal. Therefore, Grava would be nothing more than dicta if it even did apply. Going further, the Ohio Supreme Court disavowed Sixth Circuit precedent which, in reliance on Grava and other district court decisions, permitted an owner to seeking relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alongside an administrative appeal. See Moore v Hiram Twp., 988 F.3d 353 (6th Cir.2021). The Ohio Supreme Court found that the Sixth Circuit had disregarded a critical decision in Community Concerned Citizens, Inc. v. Union Twp. Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 1993-Ohio-115, which clearly held that a R.C. Ch. 2506 appeal cannot be combined with a complaint seeking other claims for relief. Id. at ¶ 11. To that end, the Ohio Supreme Court has determined that the decisions Moore relied on (outside of Grava) are no longer good law, and that Moore was wrongly decided. The decision draws a clear procedural boundary: Chapter 2506 provides judicial review of an administrative decision, not a forum for independent claims seeking affirmative relief. Although Grava may place claims arising from a single transaction within the potential scope of claim preclusion, those claims are not barred unless the complete claim-preclusion test is satisfied. Because Sheetz could not have pursued damages or declaratory relief in its Chapter 2506 appeal, the separate action was not precluded. The remaining question for practitioners looking to apply or defend against this exception is when does the statute of limitations begin to run on damages and declaratory relief claims related to an administrative decision on appeal? A takings action in federal court has a 2-year statute of limitations, or as a state claim, 4 years (like the other tortious claims raised therein). Correlating this case with others, an administrative appeal will not likely toll the statute of limitations on claims based on a final decision by a municipal authority. Therefore, practitioners should look for these cases to be brought simultaneously.

Marshall Dennehey Shareholders Recognized as Florida Trend Legal Elite Notable Women Leaders in Law

News

Marshall Dennehey Shareholders Recognized as Florida Trend Legal Elite Notable Women Leaders in Law

Marshall Dennehey Named a Standout in Litigation by BTI Consulting Group

News

Marshall Dennehey Named a Standout in Litigation by BTI Consulting Group

Event

CLM 2026 Focus Conference

Allison joins three insurance industry leaders to discuss how cyber coverage disputes, the growing impact of social inflation on bodily injury claim valuation, and the use of artificial intelligence are reshaping the bad faith landscape. The panel will examine emerging sources of extra-contractual exposure, including evolving cyber insurance coverage issues and the challenges of accurately valuing bodily injury claims. Practical approaches to claim evaluation using AI, along with defense strategies designed to help prevent or successfully defend against bad faith litigation, will also be addressed. 

Bret E. Dubbert Joins Marshall Dennehey’s Orlando Office as Special Counsel in the Casualty Department

News

Bret E. Dubbert Joins Marshall Dennehey’s Orlando Office as Special Counsel in the Casualty Department

Complete Victory Obtained in a Workers’ Compensation Matter

Result

Complete Victory Obtained in a Workers’ Compensation Matter

Thought Leadership

Pennsylvania Supreme Court to Review Whether Legal Malpractice Claims May Be Recast as Breach of Contract Claims

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently granted allowance of appeal to consider whether a plaintiff may pursue a breach of contract claim against an attorney based on allegations that the attorney failed to provide competent legal services. The issue is significant in professional liability litigation because it concerns whether a plaintiff may avoid the statute of limitations applicable to professional negligence claims by characterizing the alleged misconduct as a breach of contract. Antoine Poteat retained attorneys Gary Asteak and Nino V. Tinari to represent him in a criminal matter. After his conviction was subsequently overturned through a Post Conviction Relief Act proceeding, Poteat filed suit against his former attorneys alleging that they breached their retainer agreements by failing to provide competent legal services. The attorneys argued that the claims sounded in professional negligence, rather than breach of contract, and were therefore time-barred. The trial court dismissed Poteat’s complaint, but the Superior Court, sitting en banc, reversed. The Superior Court held that the gist-of-the-action doctrine did not bar Poteat’s breach of contract claim because the alleged failure to provide competent legal services could constitute a breach of the parties’ agreement. The Court further held that a legal-services agreement contains an implied duty requiring an attorney to provide competent legal services, even where the agreement does not contain an express provision requiring such services. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted review in July 2026 and will consider whether the Superior Court’s decision conflicts with Pennsylvania precedent distinguishing contract and tort claims, including Bruno v. Erie Insurance Co. The Supreme Court will also address whether a plaintiff may maintain a breach of contract claim based on an implied duty to provide competent legal services without identifying a specific contractual provision that was breached. The Supreme Court’s decision could have significant implications for professional liability litigation in Pennsylvania, particularly where plaintiffs seek to characterize claims arising from alleged professional negligence as contractual claims.