What is an Appraisal?
The vacation rental industry claims over two million properties throughout the United States. According to the Miliken Institute, California had 128,000 short-term vacation rental listings in 2022. The Big Bear region in...more
We wrote the other day about the trial of a Michigan mother charged with involuntary manslaughter for not taking steps to prevent her son from acquiring a gun and taking it to his school where he killed four people. Yesterday...more
In Dorchester Mutual Insurance Co. v. Miville, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts discussed the basis for its reversal of the Superior Court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Dorchester Mutual based on its...more
An issue that often arises when an insurer is determining whether a policy provides coverage for bodily injury or property damage under a liability policy is the number of occurrences that may be triggered under the policy. ...more
In Kenney v. Watts Regulator Co, No. 20-2995, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4539 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 11, 2021), the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania considered whether to exclude the plaintiff’s...more
Allie Gaiter* is a lifelong resident of Louisiana and has owned a modest home in Pierre Part, Louisiana for the past 20 years. Allie recently noticed damaged wood around her kitchen window and discolored sheetrock in the...more
In Westfield Ins. Group v. Pure Renovations, LLC, 2019-Ohio-4773, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 4829, the Court of Appeals of Ohio considered whether the lower court properly granted the defendant’s summary judgment motion. In its...more
Do costs associated with complying with an injunction constitute covered “damages?” The U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota recently certified that question to the South Dakota Supreme Court, in Sapienza v....more
The Holding - In Teufel v. Am. Family Mut. Ins. Co., 244 Ariz. 383, 419 P.3d 546 (2018), the Arizona Supreme Court recently held that a Contractual Liability Exclusion in homeowner policies did not apply to a claim for...more
Can something short of the filing of a complaint trigger an insurer’s duty to defend? It’s not an idle question. Uncertainty on this issue could produce an unintended breach, and, in some jurisdictions, breach of the duty to...more
The states are divided over whether an independent adjuster can be sued for negligence by the insured, and no Connecticut appellate court has ever addressed that issue. Last Tuesday, however, one of the state’s federal...more
Sinkholes; “Structural Damage” – When undefined in a homeowner’s insurance policy, “structural damage” caused by a sinkhole is best defined as “damage that impairs the structural integrity of the building.” Homeowners argued...more
On December 15, 2014, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court broke its long silence on the gist of the action doctrine when it issued its decision in Bruno v. Erie Insurance Co. The gist of the action doctrine precludes a plaintiff...more