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Insurance
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October 30, 2024
Defunct Insurer Says Broker Sabotoged Investment Coverage
A defunct specialty insurer has accused a broker of sabotaging its innovative investment theft protection program, telling a Florida federal court the broker not only failed to sell a single policy but also abruptly canceled its agreement amid negotiations with a separate broker, damaging the insurer's reputation and costing it millions of dollars.
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October 30, 2024
Cigna Wants $16.1M, Florida Labs Seek $5.1M In Benefits Feud
Cigna should pay $5.1 million for harming three Florida laboratories by wrongfully declaring thousands of substance abuse treatment tests medically unnecessary, the labs told a Connecticut jury Wednesday, while Cigna asked to recoup $16.1 million in payouts to the labs for what it called "wasteful" tests.
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October 30, 2024
Publix Denied Early Win Over Opioid Coverage Defense
A Florida federal court rejected Publix's bid for defense cost coverage for dozens of public nuisance lawsuits related to the opioid crisis, finding that the damages sought are too far removed from particular bodily injuries caused "because of" opioid addiction, as required in Publix's policies.
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October 30, 2024
3M Says Excess Insurers Must Cover PFAS Claims
Manufacturing giant 3M said its excess insurers must cover claims alleging injury and damage because of exposure to so-called forever chemicals in the company's products, telling a Delaware state court that the claims fall squarely within the scope of coverage promised in the policies.
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October 30, 2024
AIG Tells Del. Justices Texas Medicaid Case 'Steeped In Fraud'
An attorney for insurers who brought a mid-case appeal in a tangled suit focused on a Texas Medicaid claims processor's battles over its alleged errors and omissions in orthodontia billings told Delaware's Supreme Court Wednesday that the original case was "steeped in fraud" and propped up by negligence claims.
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October 30, 2024
Hanover Seeks To Avoid Covering Body Mishandling Suit
The Hanover Insurance Co. told an Illinois federal court it owes no directors & officers coverage to a medical nonprofit over a man's lawsuit alleging an employee "grossly mishandled" his late mother's remains, invoking exclusions it said each bar coverage under the nonprofit's policy.
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October 30, 2024
Anadarko Seeks Win In Kickback Defense Coverage Suit
Anadarko Petroleum Corp. urged a Texas federal court to hand it an early win in its suit seeking defense and indemnity from an environmental remediation company in a decade-old Louisiana kickback lawsuit.
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October 29, 2024
Mo. Panel Won't Trim $4.3M Interest Award From $40M Verdict
A Missouri state appeals court upheld a woman's roughly $4.3 million prejudgment interest award after she won $40 million at trial over her husband's fatal auto collision, finding Tuesday she was not required to directly send a pretrial settlement demand to the at-fault driver's insurer.
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October 29, 2024
La. High Court Says No Arbitration In Insurance Policies
Louisiana's top court has concluded that state law bars domestic insurers from looking to force a dispute with a policyholder into arbitration based on a clause contained in a foreign insurer's policy, ruling in an opinion that criticizes the Fifth Circuit's opposing stance on the issue.
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October 29, 2024
Texas Judge Rejects Early Win In Water Pollution Dispute
A Texas federal judge denied on Tuesday an insurer's bid for an early win in its lawsuit against a water supply company accused of providing contaminated water to Cameron County residents, despite the insurer's argument that pollution exclusions in multiple policies bar coverage for the underlying claims.
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October 29, 2024
Medical Co. Gets No Coverage For Toxic Tort
An insurer for B. Braun Medical Inc. has no duty to defend or indemnify the company against numerous lawsuits accusing B. Braun of exposing residents near one of its medical device manufacturing plants to a carcinogenic gas, a Pennsylvania federal court ruled, finding a pollution exclusion applicable.
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October 29, 2024
NJ Recycler, Insurer Settle Suit Over Millions In Fire Damage
A New Jersey recycling center has agreed to drop its suit over its insurer's alleged refusal to cover millions in losses stemming from an April 2023 fire at its facility, according to court documents.
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October 29, 2024
Roberto Clemente's Family Drops Bias Suit Against Allstate
A long-running discrimination lawsuit against Allstate, filed by the insurance agency run by the son of baseball legend Roberto Clemente, has officially come to a close with a Tuesday dismissal following a settlement reached last month.
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October 28, 2024
7th Circ. Signals Its Rulings Govern Citizens BIPA Policy Spat
The Seventh Circuit seemed uninterested Monday in shifting focus from its own precedent to either newly certified questions or a state appellate decision to determine whether a district court correctly cleared Citizens Insurance Company of America of covering a biometric privacy suit.
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October 28, 2024
Judge Hopes To Avoid Vote Issue Repeat In Talc Ch. 11 Plan
A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Monday told a pair of talc producers that the proposed creditor voting procedures on their joint Chapter 11 plans will need some work to avoid a repeat of the voting problems that derailed a previous attempt to settle asbestos injury claims.
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October 28, 2024
Surge In Nicotine Fee Suits Shows Wellness Program Risks
A recent crop of suits accusing large employers of violating nondiscrimination provisions in federal benefits law by making workers who use nicotine pay more for health insurance underscore the risk of using fees to offset healthcare costs, attorneys say. Here are five nicotine surcharge suits to keep an eye on.
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October 28, 2024
NJ Diocese Gets Insurer's Abuse Coverage Suit Tossed
A New Jersey federal court tossed an insurer's suit seeking to escape coverage for more than 200 sexual abuse lawsuits brought against the Catholic Diocese of Trenton, saying Monday the suit "relies on a strictly hypothetical controversy that may never occur."
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October 28, 2024
Fla. Condo Sues Flood Insurer Over Undervalued Storm Claim
A Florida condominium association damaged by a 2022 hurricane has alleged its insurance company failed to provide adequate compensation under the terms of a $13 million policy in accordance with its mandate with the National Flood Insurance Program.
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October 28, 2024
HHS Says In-Home Evals Raised Insurers' Medicare Payments
Private Medicare insurers collected an estimated $4.2 billion in extra federal payments last year from in-home health assessments they conducted, even though the evaluations led to no treatment, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' internal watchdog.
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October 28, 2024
Wrongful Death Coverage Capped At $1M, Zurich Says
Zurich urged a Colorado federal court to grant it an early win in a lawsuit brought by a pipeline construction company stemming from an underlying wrongful death action, arguing that relevant policy language only guaranteed the company $1 million instead of twice that amount.
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October 25, 2024
Yale, Travelers Beat Conn. Age Bias Appeals
A Connecticut appeals court on Friday declined to revive claims that Yale University and Travelers Indemnity Co. committed age discrimination with job postings seeking "recent" college graduates, reasoning that the court that threw out the cases properly interpreted state high court precedent.
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October 25, 2024
Photo App Says BIPA Ignorance Warrants Insurance Coverage
The company behind a website and app that allow families to view photos of their children at summer camp told an Illinois federal judge it had no idea about the state's biometric privacy law, and thus couldn't have knowingly violated it, arguing that means insurers cannot shirk their responsibility to defend it in an underlying suit.
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October 25, 2024
New York City Seeks Coverage In Homeless Shelter Death Suit
The city of New York is seeking coverage from the insurer of a homeless shelter it contracted with after it was accused of negligence leading to the fatal seizure of a mother who lived there, a case removed to New York federal court Friday said.
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October 25, 2024
Insurers Have Long Used AI; Now Litigation Funders Want In
As State Farm waded into the nascent field of "artificial intelligence" tools in the mid-1980s, its mainframe computers began to overheat under the strain of calculating the values of claims.
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October 25, 2024
UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London
This past week in London has seen the Competition and Markets Authority take action against a mattress retailer after it was caught pressuring its customers with misleading discounts, Lenovo and Motorola target ZTE Corporation with a patents claim, Lloyds Bank hit by another claim relating to the collapse of Arena Television and U.K. tax authority HMRC sued by the director of an electronics company that evaded millions of pounds in VAT. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.
Expert Analysis
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Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys
Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.
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Fla. Insurer-Breach Cases Split On Unrepaired Property Issue
A Florida appellate court's recent decision in Universal v. Qureshi is directly at odds with a 2020 decision from another Florida appellate court, and raises important questions for policyholders and insurers about the proper measure of damages in breach claims involving unrepaired property, say Andrea DeField and Yaniel Abreu at Hunton.
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Series
NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q3
In a relatively light few months for banking legal updates in New York, the state Department of Financial Services previewed its views on banking sector artificial intelligence use via insurer guidance, and an anti-money laundering enforcement action underscored the importance of international monitoring processes, say Eric McLaughlin and Dana Bayersdorfer at Davis Polk.
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Series
Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer
The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.
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Plan Sponsors Must Prep For New Mental Health, Drug Rules
To comply with newly published health insurance rules requiring parity between access to mental health and substance use services compared to medical and surgical services, employers with self-insured plans will need to update third-party administrator agreements and collect data, among other compliance steps, say attorneys at Kilpatrick.
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Insurance Likely Kept Swift Out Of The Woods After Vienna
Financial losses Taylor Swift incurred from the cancellation of three concerts in Vienna in August will likely be covered by insurance policies, considering how the facts of the situation differ from those of the Foo Fighters' 2015 insurance dispute over event cancellation and terrorism coverage, say attorneys at Anderson Kill.
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Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession
About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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Opinion
AI May Limit Key Learning Opportunities For Young Attorneys
The thing that’s so powerful about artificial intelligence is also what’s most scary about it — its ability to detect patterns may curtail young attorneys’ chance to practice the lower-level work of managing cases, preventing them from ever honing the pattern recognition skills that undergird creative lawyering, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.
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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: September Lessons
In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy identifies practice tips from four recent class certification rulings involving denial of Medicare reimbursements, automobile insurance disputes, veterans' rights and automobile defects.
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3 Coverage Tips As 2nd Circ. 'Swipes Left' On Tinder Claim
The Second Circuit's recent opinion in Match Group v. Beazley Underwriting, overturning Tinder's victory on its insurer's motion to dismiss a coverage action, reinforces three best practices policyholders purchasing claims-made coverage should adhere to in order to avoid late-notice defenses, say Lynda Bennett and Alexander Corson at Lowenstein Sandler.
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Series
Round-Canopy Parachuting Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Similar to the practice of law, jumping from an in-flight airplane with nothing but training and a few yards of parachute silk is a demanding and stressful endeavor, and the experience has bolstered my legal practice by enhancing my focus, teamwork skills and sense of perspective, says Thomas Salerno at Stinson.
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Why Now Is The Time For Law Firms To Hire Lateral Partners
Partner and associate mobility data from the second quarter of this year suggest that there's never been a better time in recent years for law firms to hire lateral candidates, particularly experienced partners — though this necessitates an understanding of potential red flags, say Julie Henson and Greg Hamman at Decipher Investigative Intelligence.
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Considering Possible PR Risks Of Certain Legal Tactics
Disney and American Airlines recently abandoned certain litigation tactics in two lawsuits after fierce public backlash, illustrating why corporate counsel should consider the reputational implications of any legal strategy and partner with their communications teams to preempt public relations concerns, says Chris Gidez at G7 Reputation Advisory.
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What To Know About Insurance Coverage For Antitrust Risks
With all the regulatory activity surrounding antitrust and unfair competition claims, as highlighted by last month's D.C. federal court decision that Google is a monopolist, businesses must not only ensure compliance, but also understand their potential insurance coverage when such claims arise, says Micah Skidmore at Haynes Boone.
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It's No Longer Enough For Firms To Be Trusted Advisers
Amid fierce competition for business, the transactional “trusted adviser” paradigm from which most firms operate is no longer sufficient — they should instead aim to become trusted partners with their most valuable clients, says Stuart Maister at Strategic Narrative.