General Liability
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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.
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March 21, 2024
9th Circ. Backs Rescission Of Homeowner's Property Policies
Two Safeco insurers are entitled to rescind policies issued to a woman who misrepresented that her house wasn't used for business when in fact it was rented to short-term guests, the Ninth Circuit affirmed, saying there's no genuine issue of material fact as to the commercial use of the property.
Expert Analysis
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Flawed NY Insurance Law Needs Amendments
The New York Comprehensive Insurance Disclosure Act, recently signed by the governor, imposes a multitude of problematic disclosure obligations on defendant-insureds, which the Legislature should — and likely will — seriously consider modifying or eliminating, says Richard Mason at MasonADR.
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Justices May Hesitate To Review Calif. Fraud Coverage Case
In Adir International v. Starr Indemnity, the policyholders are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review their challenge of a California law prohibiting insurers from defending insureds in certain consumer protection claims, but the court may not be ready to decide the issue at this time, says Greg Mann at Rivkin Radler.
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Court Split On Amazon's Seller Liability Could Be Moot
Courts across the country have split on Amazon's liability for products sold on its marketplace, but if more e-commerce platforms follow its lead on insurance coverage requirements for vendors, it may not matter how courts resolve the seller liability issue, says Thomas Kurland at Patterson Belknap.
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JP Morgan Ruling May Have Broad Insurance Implications
The New York Court of Appeals' recent decision in J.P. Morgan Securities v. Vigilant Insurance — that settlement funds paid to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission did not constitute a penalty for insurance purposes — could have far-reaching application in other types of insurance litigation where plaintiffs could be characterized as seeking equitable relief, say Robert Shulman and Cristen Rose at Paley Rothman.
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Insurers Should Honor Astroworld Coverage Obligations
While insurers may be eager to shift blame on Astroworld showrunner Travis Scott for conditions that resulted in 10 deaths and dozens of injuries, arguments suggesting the tragedy shouldn't be covered appear baseless in light of the facts and the law, says Benjamin Massarsky at Miller Friel.
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Resolving Asbestos Suits Faster In The Pandemic And Beyond
Trial delays due to COVID-19 are an incentive for asbestos plaintiffs and defendants to adopt litigation reforms that can help bring cases to verdicts or settlements faster — changes that will be valuable even after the pandemic ends, says Lisa Oberg at Husch Blackwell.
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Priority Of Coverage Lessons From 2nd Circ. Insurance Ruling
The recent Second Circuit decision in Century Surety v. Metropolitan Transit Authority — holding that, for priority of coverage determination, a contractual indemnity agreement governs over an insurance policy's terms — highlights the importance of understanding how the dynamics between commercial contracts and insurance policies may help shift liability, say Syed Ahmad and Yaniel Abreu at Hunton.
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Insurance Commissioner's Agenda: NY On Industry Diversity
My Chi To, executive deputy superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services Insurance Division, discusses steps her agency is taking to promote diversity, equity and inclusion within the insurance industry and suggests practices for companies to consider adopting.
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Insurance Considerations Amid Increased Use Of Drones
The growing use and rapidly evolving regulation of drone technology across industries raise tricky insurance coverage questions and increase exposure to third-party liability and first-party loss, say attorneys at Covington & Burling.
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Nursing Homes May See Litigation Spike After 7th Circ. Ruling
The Seventh Circuit’s recent Federal Nursing Home Reform Act ruling in Talevski v. Health and Hospital Corp. opens skilled nursing facilities to federal litigation from private plaintiffs and could require exhaustion of administrative remedies before invoking state or federal court jurisdiction, say Randall Fearnow and Edward Holloran at Quarles & Brady.
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2 Cases Will Help Shape Opioid Litigation Insurance Coverage
Upcoming decisions from the Ohio and Delaware high courts in Acuity v. Masters Pharmaceutical and Rite Aid Corp. v. ACE American Insurance, respectively, on whether insurers must defend policyholders in prescription opioid litigation filed by government entities are sure to provide precedent for resolution of these coverage issues nationwide, say Courtney Horrigan and Kateri Persinger at Reed Smith.
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Pa. Lawmakers Must Save Medical Liability Venue Rule
The Pennsylvania Legislature should stop the state's Civil Procedural Rules Committee from rolling back a rule banning medical malpractice forum shopping, to avoid a return to rampant liability claims in high-verdict courts, sky-high insurance premiums for doctors and less public access to care, says Curt Schroder at the Pennsylvania Coalition for Civil Justice Reform.
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What 9th Circ. Arbitration Case May Mean For Insurance
If the plaintiffs in CLMS Management Services v. Amwins Brokerage of Georgia appeal the Ninth Circuit's recent decision that state law does not bar the enforcement of arbitration clauses in insurance contracts, the case may have a significant effect on the different dispute resolution options for insurers and policyholders, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.