Theodore M. "Ted" Dunn, Jr., Business Attorney in Cleveland, Ohio

Ted Dunn brings sophisticated strategy and extensive trial experience to his litigation practice. He represents businesses in complex disputes, including risk management, insurance coverage, contract disputes, professional liability, product liability, workplace intentional torts, and casualty and wrongful death cases. Ted also handles trademark infringement, trade secrets, unfair competition, and closely held entity disputes.

Ted is licensed to practice law in Ohio, and is admitted to the United States Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, and the Northern and Southern Districts of Ohio.

• A manufacturer of glass containers asserted breach of contract, breach of warranty, and tort claims against the processor of tube scale sold as an amber coloring agent, alleging that multiple shipments of tube scale were contaminated requiring the manufacturer to scrap more than 1,850 tons of glass containers. Motorists Mutual filed a declaratory judgment action after the processor presented the claim under its commercial general liability and umbrella policies. After the trial court granted Motorists Mutual’s summary judgment motion denying coverage, Ted successfully represented the tube scale processor on appeal to the Sixth District Court of Appeals and then on further by Motorists Mutual to the Supreme Court of Ohio. In Motorists Mut. Ins. Co. v. Ironics, Inc., 168 Ohio St.3d 467, 2022-Ohio-841, the Supreme Court upheld coverage under the umbrella policy in a significant insurance coverage victory for component manufacturers addressing issues of property, damage, occurrence, the doctrine of fortuity, the integrated system rule, the economic loss doctrine, and the “your product “, “your work”, and the “impaired property” business risk exclusions.

• Ted represented a national bank in Northern District of Ohio MDL 1490: In Re: Commercial Money Center, Inc. Equipment Lease. Commercial Money Center, Inc. (CMC) was at the center of a nationwide Ponzi-like scheme to defraud investors in the sales of pools of subprime equipment leases. CMC arranged for the surety to issue bonds that guaranteed to obligees the payment of the income streams under the terms of the equipment leases. CMC and the surety entered into Sales and Servicing Agreements with the investors wherein CMC as the named obligee assigned the surety bonds to the investor and the surety agreed to be the servicer of the lease pools with CMC as its subservicer. The national bank was a lender to special purpose entity investors. After CMC defaulted on monthly lease payments, the MDL litigation focused on the enforceability of the fraud waiver in the surety bonds and the surety’s liability based on its underwriting and servicing responsibilities. A settlement was achieved after years of litigation of this complex commercial litigation.