Hinshaw Releases Second Edition of Duty to Defend: A Fifty-State Survey
Loading and Unloading Under GL and Auto Policies: 2022
Prior & Pending Litigation
What is a Damron Agreement?
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, applying California law, has affirmed a district court’s determination that California Insurance Code § 533 barred indemnity and defense costs coverage for a lawsuit...more
Plaintiff’s counsel often employ a range of strategic tactics to defeat diversity jurisdiction because they view federal court as an unfavorable forum. One such tactic is to challenge the amount in controversy—a key...more
When it comes to insurance contracts, the devil is often in the details, as a recent Oregon Court of Appeals case illustrated. In The Final Table, LLC v. Acceptance Casualty Insurance Co., an individual was seriously injured...more
In Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. Carmichael, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, applying Alabama law, entered summary judgment ruling that Nationwide Fire Insurance Co. had no duty to...more
The duty of a liability insurer to defend a policyholder from litigation is typically described as broad and expansive, extending beyond the insurer’s duty to indemnify. The duty to defend generally obliges an insurer to...more
SPOTLIGHT: Third Circuit Court of Appeals Affirms No Coverage for Sex Trafficking Claims - In Nautilus Insurance Co. v. Motel Management Services Inc., the Court of Appeals granted a motion for judgment on the pleadings...more
Pepsi-Cola Metro. Bottling Co. v. Emp’rs Ins. Co., 2022 Wisc. App. LEXIS 598 (Wisc. Ct. App. July 8, 2022) - Wisconsin Court of Appeals (in a divided decision) holds that a “post-loss” assignment of rights under a...more
The “Duty to Defend” is a term of art used to describe an insurance company’s obligation to defend policyholders against claims made under a liability insurance policy. In the context of workplace injuries, a recent ruling...more
In Progressive Southeastern Ins. Co. v. B&T Bulk, LLC, No. 21S-CT-496, 2022 Ind. LEXIS 131, the Supreme Court of Indiana (Supreme Court) reversed a decision of the Court of Appeals of Indiana (Court of Appeals), ruling that...more
Welcome to CICR’s annual recap of insurance cases you should know about — and others in the pipeline to watch. You can read about our selections for “Cases to Know” and “Cases to Watch” below. In the last year, we saw...more
The Court of Appeals of Indiana recently ruled that, in Indiana, Form MCS-90 endorsements on insurance policies apply to purely intrastate trips, including when the vehicle is on the way to pick up cargo but has not yet done...more
Do general liability policies provide coverage for limited disclosures of biometric data, such as fingerprints? The Illinois Supreme Court has concluded that they do. In a unanimous decision, the Illinois Supreme Court...more
There are certain generally held principles regarding an insurer’s duty to defend. One of these principles is that an insurer has a duty to defend its insured if the complaint states a claim that potentially falls within the...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (“Court”) addressed in a January 17th opinion a company’s umbrella insurance policy’s absolute pollution exclusion. See Eastern Concrete Materials, Inc., v. Ace...more
In a sweeping decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit extended the absolute pollution exclusion to the unplanned discharge of “rock fines,” pellets produced during quarry operations, and denied coverage for...more
Miller Marital Deduction Trust v. Zurich American Insurance Company, — P.3d –, 2019 WL 5304862; First Appellate District Court of Appeal, Division Three, Case No. A155398 (October 21, 2019). In Miller Marital Deduction...more
McMillin Homes Constr., Inc. v. National Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 35 Cal.App.5th 1042 (2019); Fourth Appellate District Court of Appeal, Division One, Case No. D074219 (June 5, 2019). McMillin Homes Construction, Inc....more
Does an Errors & Omissions (E&O) insurer have a duty to defend its insured mental healthcare provider when the policyholder was not licensed to provide such mental health counseling services? The Eleventh Circuit recently...more
In Greene v. Kenneth R. Will, a CGL insurer recently prevailed in a declaratory judgment action arising from an underlying class action alleging pollution and nuisance claims against the insured, VIM Recycling LLC, an...more
It’s a familiar story to anyone involved in insurance claims. A policyholder is sued and tenders the claim to its insurer. The insurer agrees to defend subject to a reservation of rights, but it also asserts that policy...more
A feature of 28 U.S.C. § 1332, the diversity-jurisdiction statute, may make you scratch your head and wonder why it’s there. In the Seventh Circuit’s March 15, 2018 decision in Hyland v. Liberty Mutual Fire Ins. Co., No....more
On March 1, a New York appeals court ruled that American International Group, Inc. (AIG) need not defend Carfax, Inc. against a $50 million suit alleging the company monopolized the vehicle history report market. ...more
Addison Ins. Co. v. 4000 Island Blvd. Condo. Ass’n, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 26870 (11th Cir. Dec. 28, 2017) - The owner of a high-rise condominium building in Florida hired a contractor to replace the building’s concrete...more
August 2017 In Short The Situation: Reversing a pair of federal district court rulings, the Fifth and Ninth Circuits have held that insurers must defend commercial general liability policyholders in advertising injuries...more
In Boyle v. Zurich American Insurance Company, 472 Mass. 649 (2015), decided on September 14, 2015, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (the “SJC”) indicated, to the dismay of the insurance defense bar, that the right to...more