St. Paul Fire & Marine Files Suit Against Denver Broncos

St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance has filed a lawsuit against the Denver Broncos and nine of its former players, saying its policies only covered claims in New Mexico for a “class of employee that did not include football players.”

According to court documents, St. Paul handled insurance for Rocky Mountain Empire Sports, which in 1981 assigned all its interests to PDB Sports Ltd., which does business as the Denver Broncos.

St. Paul Fire & Marine said ex-Broncos Edwin Smith, Floyd Little, John Rowser, Louie Wright, Godwin Turk, Barney Chavous, Mike Schnitker, William Van Heusen and Randolph Gradishar made workers compensation claims against the Broncos/PDB Sports of more than $100,000. However, the insurer said the policies were issued to RMES on an “if any” basis to provide interim workers’ comp coverage in New Mexico, if the need arose, and that RMES never identified any employees to be covered by the policies.

The company said: “The Individual Defendants have brought workers’ compensation claims against PDB in the state of California, as a result of injuries alleged to have been sustained by the individual defendants in the state of California. PDB has made a demand under the policies for payment of benefits relating to the California claims. The policies provide no coverage for the California Claims. Further, certain of the California Claims fall outside of the policy periods.”