Months and months ago you planned a wonderful vacation to Italy, or you scheduled an important business trip to Spain, or a cruise around the Greek Isles, or a shopping trip to New York, or a college assessment in California,...more
When the Governor of Louisiana issued a COVID-19 proclamation postponing or canceling certain gatherings of 250 or more people, the owners of the Oceana Grill, a restaurant in the heart of the French Quarter, filed a lawsuit...more
The Kansas Supreme Court recently reversed the Kansas Court of Appeals, and re-instated a three-plus million dollar jury verdict in favor of an injured BNSF Railway worker. It did so after finding that it was for the jury —...more
FELA plaintiffs have long pointed out that Congress placed FELA cases in the hand of juries “to the maximum extent proper.” Tiller v. Atl. Coast Line R. Co., 318 U.S. 54, 68 & n. 30 (1943). But how often to the railroads make...more
One commentator has called the scope of Additional Insured coverage “[o]ne of the oldest and most confounding debates in the insurance world.” Another chapter was written the other day in Pioneer Cent. Sch. Dist. v. Preferred...more
An Illinois General Contractor learned a hard lesson the other day; the case is Vivify Constr., LLC v. Nautilus Ins. Co., 2017 IL App (1st) 170192.
The General Contractor, Vivify Construction, subcontracted part of the job...more
We have noted, again and again, examples of disappointed Additional Insureds. Today we report that at least one Additional Insured has left the Courthouse smiling. It was, however, to paraphrase Wellington, a near-run...more
We’ve chronicled some of the ways in which an “Additional Insured” can be disappointed. The most recent is from Pennsylvania, where the United States District Court Judge agreed with the Magistrate that the Additional...more
A plaintiff who received fifty five million dollars (and 22,500 acres of land) via a settlement was able to hang on to all of it, despite allegations that it had been obtained by means of fraud on the court, thanks in part to...more
We’ve used this headline before. We’ll almost certainly use it again. The case this time, just handed down by the New York Court of Appeals, is Burlington Insurance Co. v. NYC Transit Authority....more
The Washington Supreme Court just handed a defeat to Washington State liability insurers, holding that ProBuilders Specialty Insurance Company had a duty to defend a carbon monoxide poisoning case, notwithstanding a broad...more
The latest round in the fight over the CGL’s “pollution exclusion” — which well-respected commentator Craig F. Stanovich has called “one of the least understood and most litigated portions” of the CGL — went to the insurance...more
Insureds won a round the other day when the South Carolina Supreme Court held that reservation of rights letters, which it characterized as nothing but “generic statements of potential non-coverage coupled with” large...more
Readers of Law360 may recall a 2014 story about a Texas jury that rendered a $34 million dollar verdict against OneBeacon Insurance Company. According to Law360, the Jury found that OneBeacon “knowingly failed to attempt, in...more
Danny Defendant, employed by Acme Widget Co., quits. Acme, of course, disables the password that Danny had used to access the Acme computer system. Danny then asks a friend, who still works at Acme, for her password. She...more
We observed some while ago that at least some courts have questioned the “heeding presumption,” which presumes that if a manufacturer gave a warning, a consumer would have followed it. The Nevada Supreme Court, for example,...more
The importance of the ordinary reservation of rights letter – “we will defend you, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to pay a judgment” — is well known. A different kind of reservation of rights letter – “We will defend you...more
Countless indemnity agreements run along these lines:
A hereby promises to defend, indemnify, and hold B harmless against all claims [etc.] caused by A’s negligence [etc.]...more
The retail giant Costco joined the ranks of disappointed “Additional Insureds” the other day in a California Court of Appeals case, Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Tokio Marine and Nichido Fire Ins. Co. Ltd., which left Costco and...more
Answering two certified questions, the Nevada Supreme Court has adopted the independent counsel rule first laid down in San Diego Navy Federal Credit Union v. Cumis Insurance Society, Inc., holding:
When a conflict of...more
“This insurance,” the policy clearly stated, “does not apply to . . . punitive damages. . . .” And yet the carriers will be paying the entire judgment entered in Lompe v. Sunridge Partners, LLC, 54 F. Supp. 3d 1252, 1271 (D....more
No contract clause is more common than the one that says, in effect, “B promises to carry commercial general liability insurance, and to make A an ‘Additional Insured’ under B’s policy.” And perhaps no contract clause...more
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court clarified an important liability insurance issue the other day. Mut. Benefit Ins. Co. v. Politsopoulos, 2015 Pa. LEXIS 1126 (Pa. May 26, 2015) (exclusion for liability for injury to “[a]n...more
We observed previously that “reasonably calculated” does not define scope of discovery, and it never has. Rather, discovery is limited, by the plain terms of F. R. Civ. P. 26, to “nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any...more
Risk management law experts – notably those at International Risk Management Institute, Inc., whose outstanding website is a treasure trove of useful information — have warned for years that Certificates of Insurance are “one...more