arthur w. harrigan, jr.

education
BA (honors), Harvard. JD (honors), Columbia (articles editor, Columbia Law Review)

experience
Sherman & Sterling, 1968. Assistant District Legal Officer, 13th Coast Guard District (Seattle), 1968-71. Lane Powell, 1971 (commercial litigation head from 1982-85). Co-founded Danielson Harrigan Leyh & Tollefson in 1986.

contact info
arthurh@dhlt.com

Art Harrigan has been characterized in professional publications as one of the top trial lawyers in the Pacific Northwest. He is regularly retained in high-stakes cases by individuals, businesses and governmental entities that cannot afford any compromise in the quality of their legal representation.

Art's successful career at Lane Powell, where he chaired a commercial litigation group for several years, was interrupted in 1975 when he spent a year as Senior Counsel to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and headed its investigation of IRS intelligence activities. In 1986 he and other Lane Powell partners left to form Danielson Harrigan. Art's belief that he could better serve his clients through a small, focused firm devoted mainly to complex litigation has been borne out by a remarkable string of successful engagements.

Art is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

The following is a small but representative list of Art's significant engagements. He would be happy to provide a complete list of significant cases.

Art defended one of Seattle's largest law firms and its 93 partners against a $51 million action by National Union Fire Ins. Co. arising out of the losses of Seafirst Bank in the Penn Square failure. He won a declaratory judgment action in Federal Court in 1989 and secured summary judgment dismissing the entire claim against all defendants in King County Superior Court in 1990. $155,000 in Rule 11 sanctions were awarded against National Union.

Art represented King County in stopping the Seattle Seahawks' attempt to move the team to Southern California. This case entailed securing a TRO, litigating simultaneously in two counties, filing emergency appeals, making a State Supreme Court oral argument, and making a presentation to NFL owners on the seismic safety of the Kingdome, all in a three-month period. The case was resolved when Paul Allen acquired the team. Art was lead counsel for the County in negotiating and drafting related amendments to the Kingdome lease. Art earlier represented King County in its dispute with Mariners owner Jeff Smulyan over the value of the franchise. The issue involved interpretation of a provision of the Kingdome lease that would determine whether a local buyer with a right to purchase would have to pay a "national" price (i.e., the team could be moved from Seattle) or a "local" price. Briefs were submitted to a Big Eight accounting firm as appraiser with Smulyan represented by two New York-based national law firms. The appraiser ruled in favor of the County, making the price approximately $100 million vs. $135 million had the decision gone the other way. Shortly thereafter, a local consortium purchased the Mariners.

Art represented the founder of InfoSpace, Naveen Jain, in defending a non-compete action brought by InfoSpace after his termination, seeking to shut down his new business, Intelius, Inc. Following a four-day evidentiary hearing, the court denied a motion to enjoin the operations of the new business and awarded fees to our client. Following extensive discovery, the entire non-compete case was dismissed on summary judgment. The new business, Intelius, Inc., is fluorishing and Art serves on its board of directors.

Art represented the same individual in a Section 16(b) securities case. Art took over the case from another firm after summary judgment had been entered against the client on a $247 million claim, filing a series of post-judgment motions, and handling the Ninth Circuit appeal through the completion of all appellate briefs. The case was eventually settled with an individual contribution by the client of a fraction of the original judgment.

Art represented the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in defending an $18 million claim by a First Interstate Bank arising out of the acquisition of a mutual savings bank. The case involved thirty-four audit adjustments alleged as the basis for an $18 million indemnity obligation of our client, the FDIC. The FDIC prevailed after a three-week trial in Federal Court in which the court held in accordance with our claim that the Big Eight form that performed the audit had not acted independently, rejected the entire audit, and made independent findings on each proposed adjustment, nearly all of which were consistent with the FDIC's contentions. The Court reduced the total of the audit adjustments to $1.5 million, which was less than one-tenth of the claim, one-fourth the sum the FDIC had offered before trial, and far less than the plaintiff had last demanded. In addition to disallowing the entire audit, the court rejected the testimony of two leading experts on futures contracts and accepted the FDIC's position on this $10 million issue. The Court's decision followed trial examination of seventeen CPA witnesses on the merits of the accounting adjustments and the exchange of over one hundred pages of proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law and briefing by the two sides. First Interstate Bank was represented at trial by two partners from Covington & Burling of Washington, D.C.

Art was lead trial counsel for the Port of Seattle in airport noise litigation. The case was filed in federal court as a class action. We resisted class certification, which was denied. The case was refiled in behalf of 144 individuals. Art and partner Tim Leyh then tried a "test" case involving twelve claims to a jury in federal court for two weeks. After the jury rendered a defense verdict against all twelve plaintiffs, the balance of the claims were settled.

Other cases of note have included Sabey v. Howard Johnson, which established the principle that common law indemnity survived the Tort Reform Act; other real estate and business litigation for Dave Sabey, including an action against the sellers of Frederick & Nelson; acting as lead counsel in all civil litigation arising from the June 10, 1999, Olympic Pipe Line accident in Bellingham, Washington, involving nearly a billion dollars in claims; and representing ICO Global Communications in litigation against a Boeing satellite construction subsidiary.

Art has also had a substantial business law practice, having spent over 2,500 hours working with Craig O. McCaw and a small cadre of his associates at Eagle River Investments, LLC, on a series of business deals, including acting as primary drafter of a fifty-page Memorandum of Agreement that led to the founding of Nextel Partners, now a $7 billion Nasdaq company. Art is a director of Nextel Partners, was formerly a director of the publicly-traded brokerage firm of Ragen MacKenzie, and is also currently a director of Intelius, Inc., a leading provider of information services over the internet. In the course of his practice, Art has negotiated and drafted numerous contracts, leases and complex transactional documents.