Key Lease Work Letter Issues When the Landlord Is Doing the Work
Law Brief®: David Pfeffer and Richard Schoenstein Discuss the Legal Implications of Infrastructure Collapses
Contractual Notice Requirements: Do You Really Need Them?
Construction Defects: Lessons Learned
California Court of Appeal Opens Doors for Construction Defect Claims Outside of the Right to Repair Act
Litigation arose over whether a suit for misrepresentation and breach of contract arising out of an easement triggered a Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurer's duty to defend. Internal confidential communications...more
The Connecticut Appellate Court recently provided guidance on what does not constitute property damage under a typical contractor’s Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance policy in Westchester Modular Homes of Fairfield...more
As 2024 rapidly approaches, we look back at some of the key decisions, trends, and developments impacting the U.S. insurance industry in 2023 and look ahead at some trends and cases to watch in 2024. Insurers continue to...more
In Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. Carmichael, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, applying Alabama law, entered summary judgment ruling that Nationwide Fire Insurance Co. had no duty to...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently confirmed that liability insurers have a duty to defend their insureds in construction defect cases when the underlying complaint alleges damage to property...more
On Oct. 28, 2021, the Nevada Supreme Court in Zurich American Insurance Company v.. Ironshore Specialty Insurance Company, 137 Nev. Adv. Op. 66, held that an insured can rely on extrinsic facts to show that an insurer has a...more
McMillin Homes Constr., Inc. v. National Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 35 Cal.App.5th 1042 (2019); Fourth Appellate District Court of Appeal, Division One, Case No. D074219 (June 5, 2019). McMillin Homes Construction, Inc....more
Westfield Ins. Co. v. Weaver Cooke Constr., LLC, 2019 BL 129431 (E.D.N.C. Apr. 11, 2019) - This case arises out of the alleged defective construction of a condominium complex in North Carolina. In 2009, the developer on...more
On March 29, 2019, the Illinois Appellate Court issued an opinion clarifying when a duty to defend against construction defect allegations exists under a subcontractor’s commercial general liability (CGL) policy. The decision...more
Maxum Indemnity Co. v. Robbins Co., P.C., No. 1:17-CV-01968, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57729 (N.D. Ohio Mar. 28, 2018) - On March 21, 2018, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio granted a motion...more
Addison Ins. Co. v. 4000 Island Blvd. Condo. Ass’n, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 26870 (11th Cir. Dec. 28, 2017) - The owner of a high-rise condominium building in Florida hired a contractor to replace the building’s concrete...more
The Supreme Court of Florida recently issued an opinion in Altman Contractors, Inc. v. Crum & Forster Specialty Ins. Co., No. SC16-1420, 2017 WL 6379535 (Fla. Dec. 14, 2017), which impacts an insurer’s duty to defend and...more
In a case of first impression that will undoubtedly have significant effects on Florida’s construction and insurance industries, the Florida Supreme Court recently decided that an insurer’s duty to defend under a standard...more
That it took an appellate court to order AIG’s Lexington Insurance to honor its additional insured obligations is a measure of how frequently insurers attempt to dodge this important contractual obligation. The case of...more
In McMillin Management Services v. Financial Pacific Ins. Co. (No. D069814, filed 11/14/17), a California appeals court held that an insurer had a duty to defend a general contractor under an “ongoing operations” additional...more
The Colorado General Assembly is heading towards the conclusion of this year’s legislative session. Although one construction defect bill, House Bill 1279, passed the House and is expected to pass the Senate, most bills have...more
As this blog has repeatedly documented, it can be hard for insurers to assert the attorney-client privilege in the context of bad faith litigation. One difficulty arises in states that enforce a presumption against the...more
CGL Policies; Declaratory Judgments; Appeal of a Partial Final Judgment – A commercial general liability insurer and its insured sought declaratory relief over the question of insurance coverage and the duty to defend...more
Involuntary Dismissal of Counterclaims – In a suit between a developer and general contractor, the trial court erred in dismissing the general contractor’s counterclaims, without a motion by the developer, before the...more
Granite State Ins. Co. v. Integrity Structures, LLC, No. C14-5085BHS, 2015 WL 136006 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 9, 2015). The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington held that an insurer did not act in bad faith...more
Consumer class action claims are a familiar tool for addressing dissatisfaction with a defective product. Given that one of the goals of a consumer class action claim is to recover damages for the claimants, triggering...more
In Woodward, L.L.C. v. Acceptance Indemnity Insurance Company, WL 535726 (5th Cir. 2014), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held the insurer had no duty to defend the contractor named as an additional insured under a...more
Getting Over the Bar: Second Circuit Requires Actual Payment of Underlying Limits In Order to Trigger Excess D&O Policies - In June, the Second Circuit held that two Federal Insurance Company ("FIC") excess D&O...more
A new case from Oregon deals with a recurring problem in construction defect litigation—the absence of clear dates in the complaint regarding when damage is alleged to have occurred. ...more