The Travis Scott concert tragedy and related insurance issues
12/27/21
By: Jessica C. Samford Around the year-end holidays, news of tragic deaths is as shocking as it is heartbreaking. Just last month, ten people lost their lives from being trampled or crushed to death at a music festival in Houston, Texas. One of them was only 9 years old. In addition to the death toll, hundreds of the 50,000-person crowd were reportedly injured before the festival was cancelled. There…
12/23/21
By: David A. Slocum The Massachusetts Appeals Court recently held, based on an “uninsured location” exclusion in a homeowner’s policy, that an insurer was not required to defend and indemnify an insured homeowner against a third-party’s negligent misrepresentation claim arising out of the sale of a home previously owned by the insured. In Norfolk & Dedham Mutual Fire Insurance Company v.…
It just became more difficult for plaintiffs to scream ‘Counter-Offer’
12/13/21
By: Matthew S. Jones The California Court of Appeal for the Sixth Appellate District recently analyzed the issue of an agreed upon amount of a settlement and memorializing the settlement terms. In the case CSAA Ins. Exchange v. Hodroj (2021) Cal.App.LEXIS 1009 (ordered published on December 1, 2021), Plaintiff’s counsel wrote to the insurer stating…
Kentucky Supreme Court ends pro-insurer streak in bad faith cases
11/24/21
By: Barry Miller Insurers have had a nice streak of winning bad faith decisions from Kentucky’s courts of appeal. But in September the Supreme Court of Kentucky reminded carriers that sometimes a jury gets to decide whether a coverage debate was reasonable. Nichols v. Zurich, 2020-SC-0284-DG, September 30, 2021. Nichols was injured while driving for his employer. The employer’s…
11/19/21
By: Marc J. Shrake and Mary-Kate Planchet In the first COVID-19 Business Interruption case to reach the appellate level in California, the court used long-standing insurance principles to resolve the first-impression issue, finding against coverage. The decision in The Inns By The Sea v. California Mut. Ins. Co. (Fourth District, First Division, Case No. D079036)…
11/3/21
By: R. Victoria Fuller & Ryan Giggi In McGilloway v. Safety Ins. Co., the Supreme Judicial Court followed other jurisdictions in holding that part 4 of the standard Massachusetts automobile insurance policy provides coverage for third-party claims for the inherent diminished value (“IDV”) of a car that has been damaged and subsequently repaired. The Court…
Greater protections against wildfires are on the way
10/26/21
By: Matthew Jones The California Insurance Commissioner recently proposed a plan titled the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan (“FAIR Plan”) to help ease the burden of homeowners in areas threatened by wildfires. The recent large wildfires throughout the state have impacted some homeowners’ efforts to obtain insurance to protect their property. The FAIR…
COVID-19 business interruption claims: Virus jurisprudence is no longer novel
9/29/21
By: Joseph Gonnella Policyholders utilize a variety of wordings to describe their insurance coverage claims arising during the SARS-CoV-2 (“COVID-19”) pandemic. Under the insuring clauses of common commercial property policies, one of the relevant inquiries is whether COVID-19 causes “direct physical loss of or damage to” property. Distinct from the application of virus exclusions, this…
9/8/21
By: Nicholas J. Hubner In Blue Devil LLC v. Ace Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., No. 1:20-cv-12480, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166886, (D.N.J. Sep. 2, 2021), plaintiffs, comprised of seven related LLCs, brought seven breach of contract claims (one for each LLC policyholder), seven declaratory judgment claims, and a claim for regulatory estoppel, all related…
New York “bad faith” bill seeks to expand recovery for insureds and third parties
9/2/21
By: Christopher Donnelly In 2020, the New York State Assembly and Senate each proposed bills which sought to expand a policyholder’s ability to seek recovery from its insurer via claims for unfair settlement practices or “bad faith” claims. The proposed bills, A5623B and S06216A provided “that plaintiff may recover interest, costs and disbursements; compensatory damages, consequential damages and reasonable…
After the fact wishes are not enough to change before the fact choices
8/31/21
By: Matt Boyer The Eleventh Circuit declines to find that a policy’s coverage is illusory simply because the policy does not cover the damages the insured wants it to cover On August 26, 2021, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals published its opinion in The Travelers Indemnity Company of Connecticut v. Richard McKenzie & Son, Inc., Hermanns Real…
8/16/21
By: William H. Buechner, Jr. The Eighth Circuit recently issued the first federal appellate decision regarding a claim asserting business interruption coverage because of COVID-19. In Oral Surgeons, P.C. v. The Cincinnati Ins. Co., 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 19775 (8th Cir. July 2, 2021), the insured offered oral and maxillofacial surgery at four offices in the…