A New Jersey Supreme Court ruling has handed Berkley Insurance Company a clean win in a directors and officers coverage fight worth millions.
In a decision issued on May 11, 2026, the state's top court ruled that a "capacity exclusion" in a D&O policy barred coverage for claims tied to alleged self-dealing by the insured company's chairman. The ruling also offers carriers a clear roadmap: a consistent reservation-of-rights letter will defeat estoppel and forfeiture arguments, even after years of litigation.
Berkley issued the D&O policy to Mist Pharmaceuticals on April 21, 2014, with a $2 million limit and a policy period running from April 8, 2014 to November 30, 2015. Joseph Krivulka, Mist's board chair and a member and manager of the company, was an Insured Person under the terms.
The coverage dispute grew out of two underlying lawsuits brought by CelestialRX Investments and Krittaka Life Sciences – one filed in Delaware in 2015, the other in New Jersey in 2019. They alleged Krivulka ran a "scheme" through Akrimax Pharmaceuticals and more than a dozen entities he controlled, diverting deals and revenues away from Akrimax to what they called "paper entities" he or his associates owned. Mist Pharmaceuticals, they said, was one of those entities – and the only one Berkley insured.
Mist tendered the claim on December 8, 2015. Berkley reserved its rights from day one. In a March 9, 2016 coverage letter, it agreed to pay 10% of legal fees but spelled out the capacity exclusion in full. The clause barred coverage for any loss connected to a claim: "based upon, arising out of, directly or indirectly resulting from or in consequence of, or in any way involving any Wrongful Act of an Insured Person serving in their capacity as director, officer, trustee, employee, member or governor of any other entity other than an Insured Entity or an Outside Entity, or by reason of their status as director, officer, trustee, employee, member or governor of such other entity."
By August 2017, Berkley pulled out of the defense, citing the timing of the claim. Mist sued for coverage a month later. Berkley's answer raised the capacity exclusion as a defense.
In June 2020, the underlying parties reached a $12 million global settlement, with 25% allocated to Mist Pharmaceuticals and Krivulka in his role as chairman. Berkley refused to contribute. The trial court sided with the insured, finding Berkley had forfeited the exclusion by unreasonably withholding consent. It entered judgment for $1,751,567.35 – the remaining policy limit – plus $796,258.38 in legal fees.
The Appellate Division reversed. The Supreme Court agreed.
Writing for the majority, Justice Patterson focused on the words "in any way involving." Because the exclusion's phrases were joined by "or," any one of them was enough to bar coverage on its own, with no causal link required. Krivulka's role at Akrimax, the court said, was "front and center" in every allegation. No claim against Mist or against Krivulka in his Mist capacity stood apart from his Akrimax conduct.
On forfeiture and estoppel, the court found Berkley had done its job. Over the five years before the settlement, Berkley restated the full exclusion to Mist repeatedly, reserved its rights "no fewer than ten times" in letters and emails, and warned at least six times that nothing in its correspondence should be read as a waiver. The court quoted its earlier ruling in Passaic Valley Sewerage Commissioners: "Reservation of rights letters have long been regarded as proper defense mechanisms for insurance companies," and "a good-faith challenge to coverage is not a breach of an obligation to defend."
The forfeiture rule from Fireman's Fund did not apply, the court said, because that case turned on an insurer's bad-faith breach of a clearly covered claim. Here, the policy did not cover Mist at all, and no bad-faith finding was made.
Justices Fasciale and Hoffman dissented. They said Berkley had told Mist for more than five years that "partial coverage was available" before changing course, and that estoppel should bar reliance on the exclusion as a complete defense. They also read the clause more narrowly, arguing it should not strip coverage when wrongful acts are committed in both insured and uninsured capacities at once.
The ruling is final. The case has been remanded only for an award of counsel fees through July 7, 2021, the date Berkley first argued the capacity exclusion at the trial court level.
