General Liability
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July 31, 2024
Rising Star: Cohen Ziffer's Orrie Levy
Orrie A. Levy of Cohen Ziffer Frenchman & McKenna beat insurers' attempts to avoid defending Walmart in opioid lawsuits and secured a rare ruling setting aside a Delaware jury's verdict favoring an AIG unit in an insurance coverage trial, earning him a spot among insurance law attorneys under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.
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July 31, 2024
AIG Units Off Hook In Defending McKesson Opioid Suits
Two AIG insurers have no duty to defend McKesson Corp. over claims it intentionally over-distributed opioids, a California federal court ruled, saying the three underlying suits do not allege a potentially covered occurrence under policies issued between 1999 and 2004.
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July 30, 2024
Wash. Gym, Insurer Settle Athlete Abuse Coverage Dispute
An insurer and a gym jointly asked a Washington state federal court to dismiss the insurer's lawsuit seeking to escape any defense or indemnification obligations for an underlying suit from an underage cheerleader's mother, who accused the gym of providing a space for its founder to sexually assault her daughter.
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July 30, 2024
Insurer Says No Coverage For Florida Sex Assault Claims
A trust facing a negligence claim after a minor said she was sexually assaulted while staying at the trust's vacation rental isn't owed any coverage for the lawsuit, its insurer told a Florida federal court Tuesday, citing a sexual molestation exclusion.
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July 29, 2024
Subcontractor Partially Nixes Claims Over Defense Of MDL
A subcontractor facing consolidated personal injury claims over a chemical leak at a LyondellBasell facility in La Porte, Texas, voluntarily tossed its coverage claims against one of its insurers in Texas federal court, while noting it's still pursuing its coverage demands against two other insurers.
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July 29, 2024
Insurer Must Pay Defamation Defense Costs, Co. Says
An online health services company told a California federal court that a Hanover Insurance unit must help cover the "tens of millions of dollars" the company incurred while litigating an underlying defamation counterclaim and pursuing its own affirmative claims, calling the defense counsel the insurer installed "woefully inadequate."
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July 26, 2024
Fla. Contractor's Property Damage Coverage Suit Gets Tossed
An insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify a general contractor accused of performing defective work on a Broward County, Florida, home that resulted in damage to a neighboring property, a federal court ruled Friday, permanently tossing the builder's bid for additional insured coverage.
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July 26, 2024
Insurers See Losses Amid Migration To Severe Weather States
Population migration into parts of the U.S. with more severe weather is one factor driving the worst U.S. homeowner's insurance underwriting results since at least 2000, according to a report on the insurance industry from AM Best.
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July 25, 2024
11th Circ. Won't Rehear State Farm Auto Policy Coverage Row
A three-judge panel in the Eleventh Circuit said Thursday they won't rehear their decision dismissing a proposed class action brought by a State Farm policyholder alleging that the insurer's denial of coverage for her medical expenses following a car accident was based on an ambiguous "reasonableness" standard.
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July 25, 2024
SC Justices Reject Insurer's Bid To Avoid Asbestos Coverage
An insurer for a now-defunct thermal insulation installer can't invoke an exclusion for bodily injury stemming from completed operations to avoid settlement coverage of an underlying "take-home" asbestos injury claim, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled, further clarifying when an insurer can use an insured's untimely notice to bar coverage.
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July 25, 2024
CrowdStrike Outage May Leave Policyholders Few Options
Policyholders whose operations were disrupted by global outages caused by an issue with cybersecurity company CrowdStrike Holdings Inc.'s software may have few options to recover despite the chaos for air travel, government operations and financial institutions.
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July 25, 2024
Retailer Urges NC Justices To Revive COVID Coverage Row
A clothing company told North Carolina's highest court that the state's appeals court erred in dismissing its lawsuit attempting to recover COVID-19-related losses from its insurer, arguing that the lower court disregarded the omission of a virus exclusion from the policy, which "concede[d] that a virus can cause 'damage.'"
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July 25, 2024
Insurance Litigation Week In Review
Massachusetts’ top court sided with a hospital owner in a storm damage coverage dispute, the California Supreme Court revived a suit over State Farm’s claims-handling practices and the Ninth Circuit affirmed an insurer’s COVID-19 coverage win. Here, Law360 takes a look at this week's top insurance news.
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July 25, 2024
Climate Risks Heighten Inequities In Insurance Crisis
Climate risks are contributing to higher homeowners insurance prices and a crisis of uninsured households, particularly among low-income homeowners and people of color, experts say, with some saying "transformative" change is needed to solve the problem.
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July 25, 2024
Policyholder Attys Cheer Justices' Ruling On 'Surface Waters'
Like a bridge over troubled water, Massachusetts' highest court laid down a rejection of the term "surface waters," finding insurers couldn't rely on the phrase to limit coverage to a storm-damaged hospital in an opinion celebrated by policyholder attorneys as providing far-reaching clarity on a contested issue.
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July 24, 2024
6th Circ. Floats Remand Of Geico Agent Misclassification Suit
The Sixth Circuit on Wednesday pressed Geico about plan documents reviewed by a lower court when it tossed agents' claims they were misclassified as independent contractors, floating the possibility of sending the case back for limited discovery.
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July 24, 2024
Liberty Mutual Gets $2.4M Oil Contamination Row Trimmed
A New York federal judge trimmed a $2.4 million coverage dispute between Liberty Mutual and an oil and gas trader over losses related to a contaminated oil shipment, finding that although the trader met its burden to make a case for recovery, certain contaminated product was excluded from coverage.
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July 24, 2024
Nationwide Urges Mich. Court To Stand By Unitary Biz Ruling
The Michigan Court of Appeals properly ruled that insurance companies that are part of Nationwide should file their taxes as a unitary group, the company told the appeals court, saying the state Treasury Department's request for reconsideration should be denied.
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July 23, 2024
Insurers Must Defend Well Driller In Lead Contamination Suit
Insurers must defend a drilling company accused of contaminating a rental property's water supply with dangerous levels of lead, a Montana federal court ruled, saying they haven't shown the underlying claims fall outside the policies' insuring agreements or are otherwise excluded from coverage.
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July 22, 2024
Zurich Unit Needn't Cover Motorcyclist's Crash Dispute
The Third Circuit affirmed a Zurich unit's win Monday in a dispute over coverage for a boiler company sued by a motorcyclist injured in a crash with a company employee, saying not only are the motorcyclist's claims untimely, but the company's policy excludes coverage for the accident.
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July 22, 2024
Nationwide Seeks Travelers' Aid In Hot Tub Illness Row
Nationwide told a California federal court a Travelers unit must help defend a condominium association in an underlying lawsuit brought by a resident alleging he needed a double lung transplant because of hot tub contaminants, arguing Travelers' pollution exclusion and fungi or bacteria exclusion didn't apply.
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July 19, 2024
Hanover Tries To Delay $13.4M Award Over Home-Care Death
Massachusetts-based Hanover Insurance Group says it should not be forced to pay a $13.4 million judgment awarded by a jury in March to the family of a man who died in a Connecticut group home until the home operator's appeal is decided, in a motion filed in New Haven Superior Court.
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July 19, 2024
Mich. Panel OKs Nonresidents To Seek No-Fault Tort Damages
Nonresidents of Michigan or individuals whose vehicles aren't registered in Michigan can still recover tort damages for their in-state auto injuries under Michigan's no-fault insurance law, a state appeals court ruled, even if they violate a statute requiring proper no-fault insurance if they stay in Michigan for over 30 days.
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July 19, 2024
Regeneron Rips DOJ's FCA Suit As 'Divorced From Reality'
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. has told a Massachusetts federal judge that a False Claims Act suit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice claiming the company withheld information about a drug's average sales price was "divorced from reality" and the practice the government was complaining about was commonplace.
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July 18, 2024
Insurer Settles Coverage Row Over Wash. Day Care Sex Abuse
Following a contested nearly $25 million settlement agreement, an insurance coverage dispute arising from the molestation of children at an Olympia, Washington, day care center has been resolved, a Washington federal court announced Thursday.
Expert Analysis
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Consider Self-Help To Trigger Additional-Insured Status
A New Jersey federal court recently affirmed that owners and contractors can use self-help by filing third-party claims for indemnification against subcontractors, triggering coverage from a subcontractor's insurance by asserting that an employee's injuries resulted from the subcontractor's fault or the employee's own negligence, say Allen Wolff and Ethan Middlebrooks at Anderson Kill.
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Why 7th Circ.'s BIPA Insurance Analysis Is Significant
The Seventh Circuit's ruling in Citizens v. Wynndalco is the first appellate opinion on one of the three major exclusions raised by insurers faced with a duty to defend alleged violations of the Biometric Information Privacy Act and could foreshadow future BIPA opinions favoring policyholders, say John Vishneski and Adrienne Kitchen at Reed Smith.
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What 6th Circ. Ruling May Portend For PFAS Coverage Cases
The Sixth Circuit's recent decision in Admiral Insurance v. Fire-Dex, rejecting the insurer's attempt to avoid coverage, shows that federal courts may decline to resolve novel PFAS state-law issues, and that insurers may have less confidence than originally intimated in the applicability of the pollution exclusion to PFAS claims, say attorneys at Hunton.
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Insurance Considerations For State Biometric Privacy Claims
As Connecticut and Colorado join the growing number of states that have enacted biometric data privacy acts auguring significant damages, in-house counsel thinking about insurance coverage for privacy liability should consider several key factors including clarity of exclusions, say Peter Halprin and Tae Andrews at Pasich.
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5th Circ. Ruling Aids Insureds In Contractual Exclusion Rows
The Fifth Circuit's recent insurance decision in Windermere Oaks v. Allied World, in favor of coverage, provides policyholders with guidance on how to distinguish between contractual and noncontractual claims when insurers deploy broadly worded liability exclusions to deny coverage, say Max Louik and David Ledet at Reed Smith.
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2nd Circ. Reinsurance Ruling Correctly Applied English Law
Contrary to a recent Law360 guest article's argument, the Second Circuit correctly applied English law when it decided in Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania v. Equitas that concurrent reinsurance certificates required the reinsurer to cover loss in accordance with the law of the policy's governing jurisdiction, say Peter Chaffetz and Andrew Poplinger at Chaffetz Lindsey.
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ALI, Bar Groups Need More Defense Engagement For Balance
The American Law Institute and state bar committees have a special role in the development of the law — but if they do not do a better job of including attorneys from the defense bar, they will come to be viewed as special interest advocacy groups, says Mark Behrens at Shook Hardy.
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2nd Circ. Reinsurance Ruling Misconstrues English Law
The Second Circuit's finding in Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania v. Equitas Insurance, that London-based reinsurer Equitas owed coverage for losses outside the policy period, stems from that court's misinterpretation of English law on reinsurance policy construction, says Christopher Foster at Holman Fenwick.
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4 Emerging Risks For US Insurance Markets
Both insureds and insurers in the U.S. must be aware of significant inbound exposures — including the issues arising from opioids, climate change and artificial intelligence — that could lead to continued volatility in insurance markets, say Aidan McCormack and Wes Reichart at DLA Piper.
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How Mich. Bill Could Reshape State's Insurance Landscape
A recently introduced Michigan Senate bill would bar insurers from delaying, denying or failing to pay a claim unless there is a reasonable basis found in the policy, but its requirement calling for written standards for claims adjusting could create liability issues for large insurers, says Emily Coyle at Plunkett Cooney.
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PFAS Coverage Litigation Strategy Lessons For Policyholders
While policyholders' efforts to recover insurance proceeds for PFAS-related costs are in the early stages, it appears from litigation so far that substantial coverage should be available for PFAS-related liabilities, including both defense costs and indemnity payments in connection with those liabilities, say Benedict Lenhart and Alexis Dyschkant at Covington.
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Exxon Ruling Highlights Additional Insured Coverage Conflict
Despite the Texas Supreme Court's recent decision in Exxon Mobil v. National Union, finding that contractual minimum insurance requirements cannot be used as a ceiling to bar umbrella coverage, the case nevertheless illustrates insurers' aggressive tactics to reduce the scope of additional insured coverage, say David Kroeger and Steven Tinetti at Jenner & Block.
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Tackling Long-Tail Legacy Liability Risk: A Defendant's Toolkit
Johnson & Johnson was recently rebuffed in its efforts to employ the "Texas Two-Step," which is likely to affect this increasingly popular method to isolate and spin off large asbestos and talc liabilities, but companies have multiple options to reduce long-tail legacy liability risk, says Stephen Hoke at Hoke LLC.