Amy Harmon Geddes

Amy Harmon Geddes is a Member in Nexsen Pruet’s Columbia, SC office practicing in the areas of mass tort, commercial and business litigation.  Her emphasis is insurance litigation, including bad faith claims, coverage disputes, and third-party claims.  Ms. Geddes also focuses on product liability claims and has handled cases involving a range of products including asbestos.  Ms. Geddes practices in all levels of the South Carolina State Courts, from the Administrative Law Court and Circuit Courts to the Appellate Courts, as well as in the Federal Courts in the District of South Carolina. 

Ms. Geddes received a B.A. degree in English from the University of South Carolina, graduating Magna Cum Laude, with Honors from the South Carolina Honors College, and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.  Ms. Geddes received her J.D. degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law, where she was a member of the Phi Delta Phi Legal Fraternity and Student Bar Association. 

Ms. Geddes is a member of the South Carolina Bar Association, the Richland County Bar Association, the Defense Research Institute, the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association and the South Carolina Women Lawyers Association.  Ms. Geddes has served on various committees within these organizations and has co-chaired committees on multiple occasions.  Ms. Geddes currently is a member of the Insurance Law and the Product Liability Law Committees of DRI.

• Former law clerk to the Honorable Alexander S. Macaulay of the Tenth Judicial Circuit
• Past Co-Chair, Membership Committee of the South Carolina Young Lawyers
• 2005 Graduate of International Association of Defense Counsel Trial Academy

Amy Geddes is a member of a nationwide mass tort litigation defense team serving certain manufacturers in asbestos cases filed across the country.

Ms. Geddes currently represents a distribution defendant in a case involving defective tire manufacturing, design and sale that is pending in South Carolina.

Ms. Geddes has represented and continues to represent various insurance companies and their insured in third-party suits involving claims for negligence, defamation, wrongful death and premises liability, to include slip-and-fall cases and insufficient security claims.

Ms. Geddes has represented and continues to represent a cigarette importer in various business litigation across the Southeast, ranging from challenges to states’ interpretations and applications of “escrow acts” to lawsuits for trademark infringement and unfair competition.

Ms. Geddes has prepared coverage opinions, to include conducting Examinations Under Oath, for national insurance carriers.

Ms. Geddes has represented and continues to represent a cigarette distributor in various business litigation across the country, ranging from breach of contract and fraud claims to cigarette licensing disputes.

Ms. Geddes, along with Val Stieglitz, formerly represented a national company which specialized in human tissue removal, testing and processing for transplant in a suit alleging sale of defective/contaminated human tissue.

Ms. Geddes has repeatedly represented various national insurance carriers on claims of bad faith, breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation and fraud surrounding the taking of life and homeowners insurance applications, and subsequent claim decisions under the same.  Ms. Geddes has represented these carriers in both State and Federal Courts.

Ms. Geddes and Val Stieglitz served as counsel for a local grain broker in a product liability suit arising out of the recall of contaminated pet food.

Russell Burke and Amy Geddes twice obtained Temporary Restraining Orders, and once obtained a Preliminary Injunction for long-term care facilities in rural areas that were facing imminent closure due to threatened termination of Medicare and Medicaid benefits.  These decisions by District of South Carolina Courts restraining and enjoining the government from terminating benefits were the first of their kind in the Fourth Circuit, and were contrary to holdings in other jurisdictions.    

Marc Manos, Angus Macaulay and Amy Geddes worked as a team to represent a lending institution in a complex, multi-party lawsuit related to the bank’s loans to two trusts.  After winning summary judgment on one of the two claims against the bank, two days of mediation resulted in a global settlement.

Ms. Geddes was formerly part of the defense team for manufacturers in several product liability cases involving claims of silicosis filed in South Carolina. 

Val Stieglitz and Amy Geddes formerly represented a vertical lift manufacturer in a suit alleging defective product, insufficient warnings, and breach of warranty claims.

• Nexsen Pruet Earns Designation as 'Midlands Green Business'
  Nexsen Pruet has earned designation as a Midlands Green Business, joining other Columbia-area organizations that are committed to environmentally responsible practices in the workplace.
• Nexsen Pruet Elects Nine New Members
  Nexsen Pruet announced that J. David Black, Amy Harmon Geddes, Stephen P. Groves, Sr., Gregory T. Higgins, Joseph M. Kahn, Christopher A. Ogiba, Brian T. Price, J. Frederick Reames, III, and Jeffrey S. Tibbals have been elected Members (partners) of the firm.

• Equitable Considerations in Removal
  Recent Case law around the country indicates that, like many things in the law, the answer to the removal question of "Is one year the final answer?" may not be black or white or yes or no, but now more a gray "maybe."