General Liability
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March 28, 2024
NC Justices' Split Leaves Willful Violation Question Unsolved
A dispute over coverage for a law firm accused of violating the Driver's Privacy Protection Act provided an opportunity for the North Carolina Supreme Court to interpret a policy exclusion for the willful violation of a statute, but experts say a deadlocked decision will leave the issue for another day.
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March 28, 2024
Insurer Ordered To Defend Legionnaires' Suits
The insurer of a nonprofit providing housing to at-risk individuals in New York City must defend it in three underlying lawsuits alleging that numerous residents contracted Legionnaires' disease at two properties in the Bronx, a New York federal court ruled, finding a communicable disease exclusion inapplicable.
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March 27, 2024
Insurer Can't Escape Strip Club, Models' $2M Ad Settlement
An insurer can't evade covering a nearly $2 million settlement between a Rhode Island strip club and a group of models who sued the club for misusing their images in advertisements, a federal judge ruled, holding that the club did not breach its contract when entering into the agreement.
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March 27, 2024
NC Commissioner Says Insurance Mogul's Argument 'Mistaken'
The North Carolina insurance commissioner asked the state's Supreme Court on Tuesday to allow him to give his take on a group of insurers' lawsuit against embattled mogul Greg Lindberg that alleges he pilfered the insurance companies as owner, saying if the court lets him submit an amicus brief he'll explain how Lindberg's main argument is "mistaken."
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March 27, 2024
Insurer Settles $900K Chinese Dehumidifier Fire Suit
A Chinese appliance manufacturer and a U.S. distributor known for selling fire-prone dehumidifiers settled an insurer's $900,000 suit over a policyholder's house fire, the insurer told a North Carolina federal court.
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March 27, 2024
2nd Circ. Weighs Broadening 'Claim' In Shareholder Dispute
The Second Circuit questioned Wednesday whether it should use a New York state appeals court ruling to broaden the meaning of "claim" in a propane company's directors and officers policy with a Liberty Mutual unit, including not just an entire underlying lawsuit but the individual causes of action within.
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March 27, 2024
Camden Diocese Insurers Demand Ch. 11 Plan Be Halted
Several insurers of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Camden told a New Jersey bankruptcy judge Wednesday that the approval of the debtor's third modified Chapter 11 plan stripped the insurers' rights and urged the court to implement a stay on the order.
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March 27, 2024
Smucker Needn't Pay Multiple Limits For Tainted Jif Row
J.M. Smucker Co. does not have to satisfy the retained limit for 225 underlying claims seeking damages for salmonella-contaminated Jif peanut butter individually before being eligible for coverage, an Ohio federal judge ruled, holding that the underlying claims constituted a single occurrence.
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March 26, 2024
Insurer Wants $29M Treble Damages Ruling Reversed In NC
An insurer has asked a North Carolina state appeals court to overturn a nearly $29 million ruling penalizing it for failing to defend an employee who crashed a company truck, killing his colleague, citing a policy exclusion for employee injury cases it said the trial court ignored.
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March 26, 2024
2nd Circ. Pushes Co. For Case Law In Ad Injury Coverage Row
The Second Circuit questioned Tuesday whether implicit disparagement is enough to trigger coverage under a commercial general liability policy, challenging a company accused of falsely advertising that its sanitizing products were effective to prove that a nonspecific reference to competitors' products falls within the scope of coverage.
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March 26, 2024
Insurer's Intervention In Sex-Trafficking Coverage Suit Limited
Starr Indemnity & Liability Co. can intervene in another insurer's suit against a hospitality company over coverage for sex trafficking allegations, but only if the other carrier's policy isn't rescinded and the case proceeds to a second phase of litigation, a Texas federal court has ruled.
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March 26, 2024
UK Marine Insurer Investigating Baltimore Bridge Crash
Britannia, a British marine insurer, confirmed Tuesday that it is working with authorities in Baltimore after a container ship destroyed the city's landmark Francis Scott Key Bridge in a collision that experts say is likely to cost the insurance sector billions of dollars in claims.
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March 25, 2024
NC Justices Undo Stacking Auto Insurance Coverage
The North Carolina Supreme Court has overruled 30 years of intermediate appellate court adherence to "stacking" underinsured motorist policies, ruling the plain language of a state law only allows that type of coverage to be combined among policies on a vehicle involved with a collision.
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March 25, 2024
Colo. Justices Say Insurer's Vintage Car Exclusion Holds Up
Colorado's justices on Monday ruled that specialty insurance policies for vintage cars can limit uninsured motorist coverage when they work "in tandem" with a policy for a regular-use vehicle, with the court finding that antique car policies warrant "different treatment."
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March 25, 2024
Geico Beats COVID-19 Auto Rebate Class Action On 2nd Try
A California federal judge has granted Geico's bid for victory in a certified class action alleging the insurance company owed additional refunds to drivers who overpaid their auto insurance premiums during COVID-19 shutdowns, saying the company's rebate program was adequate and did not violate the state's insurance code.
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March 25, 2024
Tesla, Travelers Settle Wrongful Death Coverage Dispute
Tesla and a Travelers unit reached an agreement in the parties' dispute over coverage of a wrongful death lawsuit involving a construction worker at a company factory in Austin, shortly after a Texas federal judge declined to strike three of the insurers' defenses.
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March 25, 2024
NC High Court Vacates Workers' Comp For Weight Loss Surgery
A divided North Carolina Supreme Court has adopted a test for determining when someone is entitled to workers' compensation for treatment related to their workplace injury and, in doing so, reversed a ruling finding a preschool must pay for an employee's weight loss surgery.
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March 25, 2024
Divided NC High Court Backs Insurer's Mailer Coverage Win
A deadlocked North Carolina Supreme Court has left undisturbed a lower court's ruling that an insurer needn't cover a law firm accused of violating the Driver's Privacy Protection Act by using personal information to market legal services to crash victims.
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March 22, 2024
Insurer Urges 9th Circ. To Reverse LA Port Co.'s Defense Win
United National Insurance Co. urged the Ninth Circuit on Friday to reverse a ruling that the insurer was obligated to defend a Los Angeles port company against pollution claims brought by the city, saying the lower court erroneously failed to enforce the policy's qualified pollution exclusion.
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March 21, 2024
AI Presents Risk To Insurers And Policyholders, Panelists Say
The growing use of artificial intelligence presents a risk to both insurers and insureds, experts said during a webinar Thursday, advising policyholders and their attorneys on how to navigate novel issues arising from the use of AI in the insurance industry.
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March 21, 2024
Calif. Panel Revives Diner's COVID Sanitization Coverage Bid
A California state appeals court revived a diner's bid for property insurance coverage of COVID-19 losses after it determined the restaurant credibly alleged direct physical losses and that the policy's language covering losses attributable to a virus applied to COVID-19 sanitization efforts.
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March 21, 2024
2nd Circ. To Weigh 'Claim' Meaning In Family Share Dispute
The Second Circuit on Wednesday will hear arguments over whether a New York federal court erred in finding that a contract exclusion barred any duty a Liberty Mutual unit had to defend a propane company and two of its executives in a family shareholder dispute.
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March 21, 2024
6 Questions For ZestyAI CEO Attila Toth
As California regulators push proposals aimed at luring back insurance companies to the state's challenged market, advanced modeling techniques have taken a prominent place in the debate over how to best price risk as traditional methods lose relevance. Here, Law360 talks to Attila Toth, chief executive officer of ZestyAI, a risk modeling company that sells artificial intelligence-based risk models to insurers seeking to refine their risk assessment capabilities.
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March 21, 2024
Insurance Litigation Week In Review
The U.S. Supreme Court considered the NRA's free speech rights and whether an insurer had standing in bankruptcy court, Geico was slammed with a $164 million payout, the Sixth Circuit seemed hesitant to force Amway to pay its own defense costs and Metallica's COVID-19 coverage case faded to black.
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March 21, 2024
Calif. Regulators' Pitch On Insurance Reform Draws Scrutiny
Two regulations proposed to help lure insurers back to California's market by speeding up the state's rate approvals and allowing insurers to use catastrophe models to set rates are drawing scrutiny as industry and consumer groups weigh their potential effects.
Expert Analysis
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Pa. Cannabis Banking Law Won't Allay Finance Industry Fears
Though a new Pennsylvania law allows financial institutions and insurers to provide services to the state’s legal cannabis industry, it’s unlikely to assuage most financial industry operators’ fears of federal reprisal, and their reluctance to work with cannabis businesses will surely persist, says Michael Sampson at Leech Tishman.
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NY Insurance Ruling Reveals Limits Of Contra Proferentem
A New York state court's decision in Brooklyn Union Gas v. Century Indemnity, finding that there's no need to construe an ambiguous policy against an insurer when the policyholder is a sophisticated company, shows that contesting the application of the contra proferentem rule is gaining more traction in courts, say John Ewell and Joanna Roberto at Gerber Ciano.
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What Wis. Anti-Assignment Ruling Means For Policyholders
A Wisconsin state court's recent decision in Pepsi-Cola v. Employers Insurance Co. of Wausau makes pivotal the question of when a loss occurs, meaning that policyholders subject to anti-assignment clauses cannot simply rely on plain contractual language, say Brian Scarbrough and Daniel Ergas at Jenner & Block.
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Taming Plaintiffs' Thriving 'Reptile' Tactics: How To Start
As rising social inflation increases the danger of plaintiffs attorneys' reptile tactics, which appeal to primal emotions instead of logic, defendants should carefully consider 22 strategies that can be employed in pretrial strategy or via traditional courtroom tools, say Scott Seaman and Diane Webster at Hinshaw.
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Taming Plaintiffs' Thriving 'Reptile' Tactics: Why It's Time
As insurers and corporate policyholders are looking down the dangerous double barrel of price level and social inflation, it's important to examine what they can do to contain a leading driver of social inflation — plaintiffs lawyers' reptile theory, which positions jurors as guardians against dangers for society, say Scott Seaman and Diane Webster at Hinshaw.
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Recent Decisions Are Eroding All-Risk Insurance Coverage
All-risk insurance coverage is under siege by insurers' broad interpretations of established exclusions, and recent decisions in New Jersey and New Hampshire have shown that courts may not protect coverage despite the policies' text and intent, says Nicholas Insua at Reed Smith.
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The Insurance Industry's Growing Potential Role In Gun Safety
This year has seen two unprecedented events — the passage of a municipal requirement for gun owners' liability insurance, and the Sandy Hook class action settlement — that may motivate insurers to help regulate firearms, but several reasons could hold them back, says Peter Kochenburger at UConn.
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Opioid Case May Guide Climate Change Insurance Suits
A recent opioid case in California federal court that defined "accident" narrowly is based on allegations analogous to those in many climate change lawsuits, and may help insurers assess whether they have a duty to defend, say Dennis Anderson and Nick Dolejsi at Zelle.
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2 Calif. Insurance Decisions Question Boundaries Of Fortuity
Last month, California state and federal courts revisited fortuity issues in two decisions that show how the occurrence requirement and the California Insurance Code's prohibition on coverage for an insured's willful acts can be exceedingly difficult to apply to lawsuits alleging novel legal theories, say Jodi Green and Sophia von Bergen at Miller Nash.
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Insurer Implications As 3 Climate Suits Return To State Courts
Three federal circuit courts recently remanded climate change lawsuits brought by state and local governments against major energy corporations back to state courts, where plaintiffs are more likely to succeed, thus significantly increasing their insurers' and reinsurers' exposure to defense costs and judgments, say José Umbert and Jason Reeves at Zelle.
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6 Rulings Reinforce BIPA Coverage For Illinois Policyholders
Six well-reasoned recent decisions in the Northern District of Illinois have considerably strengthened policyholders’ arguments for commercial general liability coverage in lawsuits brought under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, say attorneys at Neal Gerber.
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'Take Home' COVID And Emerging Liability Insurance Issues
Plaintiffs may face an uphill battle in take-home COVID-19 suits — cases filed against employers when employees contract the virus at work and then infect their family members — but insurers could still be on the hook for defense costs in protracted litigation, say Melissa D'Alelio and Michael Collier at Robins Kaplan.
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The Misinterpretation Of Pa.'s Bad Faith Claims Handling Rule
Courts applying Pennsylvania law in insurance coverage disputes, such as the recently decided Walker v. Foremost Insurance, and finding that where an insurer establishes that the subject claim is not covered by the insurer’s policy there can also be no bad faith claim by the insured, are inaccurately interpreting state law, say George Stewart and Max Louik at Reed Smith.